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Copyright 1909 hy The Edinburgh Soetety 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


The Sahib Edition of 
Rudyard Kipling 


UNDER 
THE DEODARS 


AMERICAN NOTES 


Illustrated by 
SIR E. BURNE -JONES 
REGINALD BOLLES 
- KIRKPATRICK 


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P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY 
Publishers New York 


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4 vi ; 


ER THE DEODARS 


CONTENTS 


THE EDUCATION OF OTIs YEFRE...... I 
Pram ee EET SNOUT. ale ater es 0b i an 39 
Pe AMSID IS COMEDY. skis de cca 'n eels 53 
erat, OF LULUSTION. lisa cues ane 6b» 77 
PLMEGOND-RATE WOMAN .. 0)... 0a ee eos 97 
PMSA YUBALTERN 00). 0 4.0 's o-tcv seid ecatls 133 
IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE ........ 161 


THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PaGeEtT, M.P. 181 
AMERICAN NOTES: 


BMP THY GOLDEN GATES esis). ses 8 227 
PMMPRECAN. POTTTICS 0.) )4 o Sule 6s sorts 265 
PAMERIGAN SALMON ©. ).45 0 ¢ 00s was 289 
iY ELLQWSTONE) (0's. 0 ce acs a's 307 
MINER caps elshy Ware 49! hak pc LNG eZ 
Woe AMERICAN ARMY oo. .0000 60. 347 
AMERICA’S DEFENCELESS COASTS ... 359 


UNDER THE DEODARS 


Rood OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


A SECOND-RATE Woman (See page 


Beth ei ats tp! dice ra Frontispiece 
Photogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by Reginald Bolles 
SHE WAS ... TAKEN OUT OF THE SAD- 


ama LIME TIBAP oi. le Ba healt 


Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son atter 
original by Reginald Bolles 


“Bec y PARDON, Sir, BUT DORMER’S 


MPEIO TV ATI UMh ite’ ol, s ohe veld dy svecb'ors 154 


Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son atter 
original by Reginald Bolles 


BLIND WITH Race... AND RUSHED 


RR lana pre tise odie 170 


Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
oviginal by Reginald Bolles 


er eA. Wie TIBAD ON ike oes 298 


Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son atter 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 


UNDER THE DEODARS 


THE EDUCATION OF OTIS YEERE 
I 


In the pleasant orchard-closes 
“God bless all our gains,” say we; 
But “May God bless all our losses,” 
Better suits with our degree. 
—The Lost Bower. 


HIS is the history of a failure; but the 

woman who failed said that it might be 
an instructive tale to put into print for the bene- 
fit of the younger generation. The younger 
generation does not want instruction, being 
perfectly willing to instruct if any one will 
listen to it. None the less, here begins the story 
where every right-minded story should begin, 
that is to say at Simla, where all things begin 
and many come to an evil end. 

The mistake was due to a very clever woman 
making a blunder and not retrieving it. Men 
are licensed to stumble, but a clever woman’s 
mistake is outside the regular course of Nature 
and Providence; since all good people know 
that a woman is the only infallible thing in this 


2 THE EDUCATION 


world, except Government Paper of the ’79 
issue, bearing interest at four and a half per 
cent. Yet, we have to remember that six con- 
secutive days of rehearsing the leading part of 
The Fallen Angel, at the New Gaiety Theatre 
where the plaster is not yet properly dry, might 
have brought about an unhingement of spirits 
which, again, might have led to eccentricities. 

Mrs. Hauksbee came to ‘““The Foundry” to 
tiffin with Mrs. Mallowe, her one bosom friend, 
for she was in no sense ‘fa woman’s woman.” 
And it was a woman’s tiffin, the door shut to 
all the world; and they both talked chiffons, 
which is French for Mysteries. 

“T’ve enjoyed an interval of sanity,’ Mrs. 
Hauksbee announced, after tiffin was over and 
the two were comfortably settied in the little 
writing-room that opened out of Mrs. Mal- 
lowe’s bedroom. 

“My dear girl, what has he done?’ said 
Mrs. Mallowe, sweetly. It is noticeable that 
ladies of a certain age call each “dear girl,” 
just as commissioners of twenty-eight years’ 
standing address their equals in the Civil List 
as “my boy.” 

“There’s no he in the case. Who am I that 
an imaginary man should be always credited to 
me? Am I an Apache?” 


OF OTIS YEERE 3 


“No, dear, but somebody’s scalp is gen- 
erally drying at your wigwam-door. Soaking, 
rather.” 

This was an allusion to the Hawley Boy, who 
was in the habit of riding all across Simla in 
the Rains, to call on Mrs. Hauksbee. That 
lady laughed. 

“For my sins, the Aide at Tyrconnel last 
night told me off to The Mussuck. MHsh! 
Don’t laugh. One of my most devoted ad- 
mirers. When the duff came—some one really 
ought to teach them to make puddings at 
Tyrconnel—The Mussuck was at liberty to at- 
tend to me.” 

“Sweet soul! I know his appetite,” said Mrs. 
Mallowe. “Did he, oh did he, begin his woo- 
ing ?”’ 

“By a special mercy of Providence, no. He 
explained his importance as a Pillar of the Em- 
pire. I didn’t laugh.” 

“Lucy, I don’t believe you.” 

“Ask Captain Sangar; he was on the other 
side. Well, as I was saying, The Mussuck 
dilated.” 

“T think I can see him doing it,” said Mrs. 
Mallowe, pensively, scratching her fox-terrier’s 
ears. 

“I was properly impressed. Most properly. 


4 THE EDUCATION 


I yawned openly. ‘Strict supervision, and play 
them off one against the other,’ said The Mus- 
suck, shoveling down his ice by ftureenfuls, I 
assure you. “That, Mrs. Hauksbee, is the secret 
of our Government.’ ”’ 

Mrs. Mallowe laughed long and merrily. 
“And what did you say?” 

“Did you ever know me at loss for an answer 
yet? I said: ‘So I have observed in my deal- 
ings with you.’ The Mussuck swelled with 
pride. He is coming to call on me to-morrow. 
The Hawley Boy is coming too.” 

“ «Strict supervision and play them off one. 
against the other. That, Mrs. Hauksbee, is the 
secret of our Government.’ And I dare say if 
we could get to The Mussuck’s heart, we should 
find that he considers himself a man of the 
world.” 

“As he is of the other two things. I like The 
Mussuck, and I won’t have you call him names. 
He amuses me.” 

“He has reformed you, too, by what appears. 
Explain the interval of sanity, and hit Tim on 
the nose with the paper-cutter, please. That 
dog is too fond of sugar. Do you take milk 
in yours?” 

“No, thanks. Polly, I’m wearied of this life. 
It’s hollow.” 


OF OTIS YEERE g 


“Turn religious, then. I always said that 
Rome would be your fate.” 

“Only exchanging half a dozen attachés in 
red‘ for one in black, and if I fasted, the 
wrinkles would come, and never, never go. 
Has it ever struck you, dear, that I’m getting 
old?” 

“Thanks for your courtesy. I'll return it. 
Ye-es, we are both not exactly—how shall I put 
it?” 

“What we have been. ‘T feel it in my bones,’ 
as Mrs. Crossley says. Polly, I’ve wasted my 
life.” 

“As how?” 

“Never mind how. I feel it. I want to be a 
Power before I die.” 

“Be a Power then. You've wits enough for 
anything—and beauty?” 

Mrs. Hauksbee pointed a teaspoon straight at 
her hostess. ‘Polly, if you heap compliments 
on me like this, I shall cease to believe that: 
youre a woman, Tell me how I am to be a 
Power.” 

“Inform The Mussuck that he is the most 
fascinating and slimmest man in Asia, and he’ll 
tell you anything and everything you please.” 

“Bother The Mussuck! I mean an intel- 
lectual Power—not a gas-power. Polly, I’m 
going to start a salon.” 


6 THE EDUCATION 


Mrs. Mallowe turned lazily on the sofa and 
rested her head on her hand. “Hear the words 
of the Preacher, the son of Baruch,” she said. 

“Will you talk sensibly?’ 

“T will, dear, for I see that you are going to 
make a mistake.” 

“T never made a mistake in my life—at least, 
never one that I couldn’t explain away after- 
ward.” 

“Going to make a mistake” went on Mrs. 
Mallowe, composedly. “It is impossible to 
start a salon in Simla. A bar would be much 
more to the point.” 

“Perhaps, but why? It seems so easy.” 

“Just what makes it so difficult. How many 
clever women are there in Simla?” 

“Myself and yourself,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, 
without a moment’s hesitation. 

“Modest woman! Mrs. Feardon would 
thank you for that. And how many clever 
men?” 

“Oh—er—hundreds,”’ said Mrs. Hauksbee, 
vaguely. 

“What a fatal blunder! Not one. They are 
all bespoke by the Government. Take my hus- 
band, for instance. Jack was a clever man, 
though I say so who shouldn’t. Government 
has eaten him up. All his ideas and powers of 


OF OTIS YEERE a, 


conversation—he really used to be a- good 
talker, even to his wife, in the old days—are 
taken from him by this—this kitchen-sink of a 
Government. That’s the case with every man 
up here who is at work. I don’t suppose a 
Russian convict under the knout is able to 
amuse the rest of his gang; and all our men- 
folk here are gilded convicts.” 

“But there are scores” — 

“I know what you’re going to say. Scores 
of idle men up on leave. I admit it, but they 
are all of two objectionable sets. The Civilian 
who'd be delightful if he had the military man’s 
knowledge of the world and style, and the 
military man who'd be adorable if he had the 
Civilian’s culture.” 

“Detestable word! Have Civilians culchaw ? 
I never studied the breed deeply.” 

“Don’t make fun of Jack’s service. Yes. 
They’re like the teapoys in the Lakka Bazar— 
good material but not polished. They can’t 
help themselves, poor dears. A Civilian only 
begins to be tolerable after he has knocked 
about the world for fifteen years.” 

“And a military man?” 

“When he has had the same amount of serv- 
ice. The young of both species are horrible. 
You would have scores of them in your salon.” 


8 THE EDUCATION 


“I would not!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, fiercely. 
“T would tell the bearer to darwaza band 
them. I'd put their own colonels and commis- 
sioners at the door to turn them away. I'd 
give them to the Topsham girl to play with.” 

“The Topsham girl would be grateful for the 
gift. But to go back to the salon. Allowing 
that you had gathered all your men and women 
together, what would you do with them? Make 
them talk? They would all with one accord be- 
gin to flirt. Your salon would become a glori- 
fied Peliti’s—a ‘Scandal Point’ by lamp-light.” 

“There’s a certain amount of wisdom in that 
view.” 

“There’s all the wisdom in the world in it. 
Surely, twelve Simla seasons ought to have 
taught you that you can’t focus anything in 
India; and a salon, to be any good at all, must 
be permanent. In two seasons your roomful 
would be scattered all over Asia. We are only 
little bits of dirt on the hillsides—here one day 
and blown down the khud the next. We have 
lost the art of talking—at least our men have. 
We have no cohesion” — 

“George Eliot in the flesh,” interpolated Mrs. 
Hauksbee, wickedly. 

“And collectively, my dear scoffer, we, men | 
and women alike, have no influence. Come into 
the veranda and look at the Mall!’ 


OF OTIS YEERE 9 


The two looked down on the now rapidly fill- 
ing road, for all Simla was abroad to steal a 
stroll between a shower and a fog. 

“How do you propose to fix that river? 
Look! There’s The Mussuck—head of good- 
ness knows what. He is a power in the land, 
though he does eat like a_ costertonger. 
There’s Colonel Blone, and General Grucher, 
and Sir Dugald Delane, and Sir Henry Haugh- 
ton, and Mr. Jellalatty. All Heads of Depart- 
ments, and all powerful.” 

“And all my fervent admirers,” said Mrs. 
Hauksbee, piously. “Sir Henry Haughton 
raves about me. But go on.” 

“One by one, these men are worth something. 
Collectively, they’re just a mob of Anglo- 
Indians. Who cares for what Anglo-Indians 
say? Your salon won't weld the Departments 
together and make you mistress of India, dear. 
And these creatures won’t talk administrative 
‘shop’ in a crowd—your salon—because they 
are so afraid of the men in the lower ranks 
overhearing it. They have forgotten what of 
Literature and Art they ever knew, and the 
women’’— 

“Can’t talk about anything except the last 
Gymkhana, or the sins of their last nurse. I 
was calling on Mrs. Derwills this morning.” 


TO THE EDUCATION 


“Vou admit that? They can talk to the sub- 
alterns though, and the subalterns can talk to 
them. Your salon would suit their views ad- 
mirably, if you respected the religious preju- 
dices of the country and provided plenty of 
kala juggahs.” 

“Plenty of kala yuggahs. Oh my poor little 
idea! Kala juggahs ina salon! But who made 
you so awfully clever?” 

“Perhaps I’ve tried myself; or perhaps I 
know a woman who has. I have preached and 
expounded the whole matter and the conclusion 
thereof’ — 

“You needn’t go on. ‘Is Vanity.’ Polly, I 
thank you. These vermin”—Mrs. Hauksbee 
waved her hand from the veranda to two men 
in the crowd below who had raised their hats to 
her—“these vermin shall not rejoice in a new 
Scandal Point or an extra Peliti’s. I will aban- 
don the notion of a salon. It did seem so 
tempting, though. But what shall I do? I 
must do something.” 

“Why? Are not Abana and Pharphar’— 

“Jack has made you nearly as bad as him- 
self! I want to, of course. I’m tired of every- 
thing and everybody, from a moonlight picnic 
at Seepee to the blandishments of The Mus- 
suck.” 


OF OTIS YEERE IF 


“Ves—that comes, too, sooner or later. 
Have you nerve enough to make your bow 
yet?” 

_ Mrs. Hauksbee’s mouth shut grimly. Then 
she laughed. “I think I see myself doing it. 
Big pink placards on the Mall: ‘Mrs. Hauks- 
bee! Positively her last appearance on any 
stage! This is to give notice!’ No more 
dances; no more rides; no more luncheons; no 
more theatricals with supper to follow; no more 
sparring with one’s dearest, dearest friend; no 
more fencing with an inconvenient man who 
hasn’t wit enough to clothe what he’s pleased 
to call his sentiments in passable speech; no 
more parading of The Mussuck while Mrs. 
Tarkass calls all round Simla, spreading hor- 
rible stories about me! No more of anything 
that is thoroughly wearying, abominable and 
detestable, but, all the same, makes life worth 
the having. Yes! I see it all! Don’t inter- 
rupt, Polly, I’m inspired. A mauve and white 
striped ‘cloud’ round my excellent shoulders, a 
seat in the fifth row of the Gaiety, and both 
horses sold. Delightful vision! A comfortable 
armchair, situated in three different draughts, 
at every ballroom; and nice, large, sensible 
shoes for all the couples to stumble over as they 
go into the veranda! Then at supper. Can’t 


12 THE EDUCATION 


you imagine the scene? The greedy mob gone 
away. Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like 
a newly-powdered baby,—they really ought to 
tan subalterns before they are exported, Polly 
—sent back by the hostess to do his duty. 
Slouches up to me across the room, tugging at 
a glove two sizes too large for him—lI hate a 
man who wears gloves like overcoats—and try- 
ing to look as if he’d thought of it from the 
first. ‘May I ah-have the pleasure ’f takin’ you 
*nt’ supper?’ Then I get up with a hungry 
smile. Just like this.” 

“Lucy, how can you be so absurd ?” 

“And sweep out on his arm. So! After 
supper I shall go away early, you know, be- 
cause I shall be afraid of catching cold. No 
one will look for my “rickshaw. Mine, so 
please you! I shall stand, always with that 
mauve and white ‘cloud’ over my head, while 
the wet soaks into my dear, old, venerable feet 
and Tom swears and shouts for the mem- 
sahib's gharri. Then home to bed at half-past 
eleven! Truly excellent life—helped out by the 
visits of the Padri, just fresh from burying 
somebody down below there.” She pointed 
through the pines, toward the Cemetery, and 
continued with vigorous dramatic gesture— 

“Listen! I see it ali—down, down even to 


OF OTIS YEERE 13 


the stays! Such stays! Six-eight a pair, Polly, 
with red flannel—or list is it?—that they put 
into the tops of those fearful things. J can 
draw you a picture of them.” 

“Lucy, for Heaven’s sake, don’t go waving 
your arms about in that idiotic manner! Recol- 
lect, every one can see you from the Mall.” 

“Let them see! They'll think I am rehears- 
ine for The Fallen Angel. Look! ‘There’s 
The Mussuck. How badly he rides. There!’ 

She blew a kiss to the venerable Indian ad- 
ministrator with infinite grace. 

“Now, she continued, “he'll be chaffed 
about that at the Club in the delicate manner 
those brutes of men affect, and the Hawley 
Boy will tell me all about it—softening the de- 
tails for fear of shocking me. That boy is too 
good to live, Polly. Dve serious thoughts of 
recommending him to throw up his Commission 
and go into the Church. In his present frame 
of mind he would obey me. Happy, happy 
child!’ 

“Never again,” said Mrs. Mallowe, with an 
affectation of indignation, “shall you tiffin 
here! ‘Lucindy, your behavior is scand’lus.’ ” 

“All your fault,” retorted Mrs. Hauksbee, 
“for suggesting such a thing as my abdication. 
No! Jamais-nevaire! I will act, ride, frivol, 


14 THE EDUCATION 


talk scandal, dine out, and appropriate the 
legitimate captives of any woman I choose, un- 
till I d-r-r-rop, or a better woman than I puts 
me to shame before all Simla,—and it’s dust 
and ashes in my mouth while I’m doing it!” 

She swept into the drawing-room. Mrs. 
Mallowe followed and put an arm round her 
waist. 

“T’m not!’ said Mrs. Hauksbee, defiantly, 
rummaging for her handkerchief. “I’ve been 
dining out the last ten nights, and rehearsing in 
the afternoon. You'd be tired yourself. It’s 
only because I’m tired.” 

Mrs. Mallowe did not offer Mrs. Hauksbee 
any pity or ask her to lie down, but gave her 
another cup of tea, and went on with the talk. 

“I’ve been through that too, dear,” she said. 

“I remember,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, a gleam 
of fun on her face. “In ’84, wasn’t it? You 
went out a great deal less next season.” — 

Mrs. Mallowe smiled in a superior and 
Sphinx-like fashion. 

“T became an Influence,”’ said she. 

“Good gracious, child, you didn’t join the 
Theosophists and kiss Buddha’s big toe, did 
you? I tried to get into their set once, but they 
cast me out for a sceptic—without a chance of 
improving my poor little mind, too.” 


OF OTIS YEERE 1s 


“No, I didn’t Theosophilander. Jack says — 

“Never mind Jack. What a husband says 1s 
known before. What did you do?” 

“T made a lasting impression.” 

“So have I—for four months. But that 
didn’t console me in the least. I hated the man. 
Will you stop smiling in that inscrutable way 
and tell me what you mean?” 

Mrs. Mallowe told. 

* * * * * x 

“And—you—mean—to—say that it is abso- 
lutely Platonic on both sides?” 

“Absolutely, or I should never have taken it 
up.” 
“And his last promotion was due to you?” 

Mrs. Mallowe nodded. 

“And you warned him against the Topsham 
girl?” 

Another nod. 

“And told him of Sir Dugald Delane’s pri- 
vate memo about him?” 

A third nod. 

“Why?” 

“What a question to ask a woman! Because 
it amused me at first. I am proud of my prop- 
erty now. If I live, he shall continue to be suc- 
cessful. Yes, I-will put him upon the straight 
road to Knighthood, and everything else that a 


16 THE EDUCATION 


man values. The rest depends upon himself.” 

“Polly, you are a most extraordinary 
woman.” 

“Not in the least. I’m concentrated, that’s 
all. You diffuse yourself, dear; and though 
all Simla knows your skill in managing a 
team ’’— 

“Can’t you choose a prettier word ?” 

“Team, of half a dozen, from The Mussuck 
to the Hawley Boy, you gain nothing by it. 
Not even amusement.” 

“And your” 

“Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, 
mind, but an almost mature, unattached man, 
and be his guide, philosopher, and friend. 
You'll find it the most interesting occupation 
that you ever embarked on. It can be done— 
you needn’t look like that—because I’ve done 
i | 

“There’s an element of risk about it that 
makes the notion attractive. Ill get such a 
man and say to him, ‘Now, understand that 
there must be no flirtation. Do exactly what 
I tell you, profit by my instruction and counsels, 
and all will yet be well.’ Is that the idea?” 

“More or less,” said Mrs. Mallowe, with an 
unfathomable smile. “But be sure he under- 
stands.”’ 


II 


Dribble-dribble—trickle-trickle— 
What a lot of raw dust! 
My dollie’s had an accident 
And out came all the sawdust! 
Nursery Rhyme. 


So Mrs. Hauksbee, in “The Foundry” which 
overlooks Simla Mall, sat at the feet of Mrs. 
Mallowe and gathered wisdom. The end of 
the Conference was the Great Idea upon which 
Mrs. Hauksbee so plumed herself. 

“I warn you,” said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning 
to repent of her suggestion, “that the matter is 
not half so easy as it looks. Any woman— 
even the Topsham girl—can catch a man, but 
very, very few know how to manage him when 
caught.” 

“My child,” was the answer, “I’ve been a 
female St. Simon Stylites looking down upon 
men for these—these years past. Ask The 
Mussuck whether I can manage them.” 

Mrs. Hauksbee departed humming, “J’l] go 
to him and say to him in manner most 
tromical.”” Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. 
Then she grew suddenly sober. “I wonder 
whether I’ve done well in advising that amuse- 


17 


18 THE EDUCATION 


ment? Lucy’s a clever woman, but a thought 
too careless.” 

A week later, the two met at a Monday Pop. 
“Well?” said Mrs. Mallowe. 

“T’ve caught him!’ said Mrs. Hauksbee; 
her eyes were dancing with merriment. 

“Who is it, mad woman? I’m sorry I ever 
spoke to you about it.” 

“Look between the pillars. In the third 
row; fourth from the end. You can see his 
face now. Look!” 

“Otis Yeere! Of all the improbable and im- 
possible people! I don’t believe you.” 

“Hsh! Wait till Mrs. Tarkass begins mur- 
dering Milton Wellings; and I’ll tell you all 
about it. S-s-ss! That woman’s voice always 
reminds me of an Underground train coming 
into Earl’s Court with the breaks on. Now 
listen. It is really Otis Yeere.” 

“So I see, but does it follow that he is your 
property!” 

“He is! By right of trove. I found him 
lonely and unbefriended, the very next night 
after our talk, at the Dugald Delane’s burra- 
khana. I liked his eyes, and I talked to him. 
Next day he called. Next day we went for a 
ride together, and to-day he’s tied to my ’rick- 
shaw-wheels hand and foot. You'll see when 


OF OTIS YEERE 19 


the concert’s over. He doesn’t know I’m here 
et.” 

“Thank goodness you haven’t chosen a boy. 
What are you going to do with him, assuming 
that you’ve got him?” 

“Assuming, indeed! Does a: woman—do J 
—ever make a mistake in that sort of thing? 
First”’—Mrs. Hauksbee ticked off the items os- 
tentatiously on her little gloved fingers— 
“First, my dear, I shall dress him properly. 
At present his raiment is a disgrace, and he 
wears a dress-shirt like a crumpled sheet of the 
Pioneer. Secondly, after I have made him pre- 
sentable, 1 shall form his manners—his morals 
are above reproach.” 

“You seem to have discovered a great deal 
about him considering the shortness of your 
acquaintance.” 

“Surely you ought to know that the first 
proof a.man gives of his interest in a woman 
is by talking to her about his own sweet self. 
If the woman listens without yawning, he be- 
gins to like her. If she flatters the animal’s 
vanity, he ends by adoring her.” 

“In some cases.”’ 

“Never mind the exceptions. I know which 
one you are thinking of. Thirdly, and lastly, 
aiter he is polished and made pretty, I shall, 


20 THE EDUCATION 


as you said, be his guide, philosopher, and 
friend, and he shall become a success—as great 
a sticcess as your friend. I always wondered 
how that man got on. Did The Mussuck come 
to you with the Civil List and, dropping on 
one knee—no, two knees, a la Gibbon—hand it 
to you and say, ‘Adorable angel, choose your 
friend’s appointment’ ?” 

“Lucy, your long experiences of the Military 
Department have demoralized you. One 
doesn’t do that sort of thing on the Civil 
Side.’’ 

“IWo disrespect meant to Jack’s Service, my 
dear. I only asked for information. Give me 
three months, and see what changes I shall 
work in my prey.” 

“Go your own way, since you must. But ’'m 
sorry that I was weak enough to suggest the 
amusement.” 

“*T am all discretion, and may be trusted to 
an in-fin-ite extent,’”’ quoted Mrs. Hauksbee 
from The Fallen Angel; and the conversation 
ceased with Mrs. Tarkass’s last, long-drawn 
war-whoop. 

Her bitterest enemies—and she had many— 
could hardly accuse Mrs. Hauksbee of wasting 
her time. Otis Yeere was one of those 
wandering “dumb” characters, foredoomed 


OF OTIS YEERE 21 


through life to be nobody’s property. Ten 
years in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil Service, 
spent, for the most part, in undesirable Dis- 
tricts, had given him little to be proud of, and 
nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to 
have lost the first fine careless rapture that 
showers on the immature “Stunt imaginary 
Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him 
into the collar with coltish earnestness and 
abandon ; too young to be yet able to look baci 
upon the progress he had made, and thanls 
Providence that under the conditions of the 
day he had come even so far, he stood upon 
the dead-centre of his career. And when a 
man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse 
from without. Fortune had ruled that Otis 
Yeere should be, for the first part of his serv- 
ice, one of the rank and file who are ground 
up in the wheels of the Administration; losing 
heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the 
process. Until steam replaces manual power 
in the working of the Empire, there must al- 
ways be this percentase—must always be the 
men who are used up, expended, in the mere 
mechanical routine. For these promotion is 
far off and the mill-grind of every day very 
instant. The Secretariats know them only by 
name; they are not the picked men of the Dis- 


22 THE EDUCATION 


tricts with Divisions and Collectorates await- 
ing them. They are simply the rank and file 
——_the food for fever—sharing with the ryot 
and the plough-bullock the honor of being the 
plinth on which the State rests. The older 
ones have lost their aspirations; the younger 
are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both 
learn to endure patiently until the end of the 
day. Twelve years in the rank and file, men 
say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull 
the wits of the most keen. 

Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a 
few months; drifting, in the hope of a little 
masculine society, into Simla. When his leave 
was over he would return to his swampy, sour- 
green, under-manned Bengal district; to the 
native Assistant, the native Doctor, the native 
Magistrate, the steaming, sweltering Station, 
the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised inso- 
lence of the Municipality that babbled away 
the lives of men. Life was cheap, however. 
The soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs 
in the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of 
one season was filled to overflowing by the 
fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly 
thankful to lay down his work for a little while 
and escape from the seething, whining, weakly 
hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its 


OF OTIS YEERE 23 


power to cripple, thwart, and annoy the 
sunken-eyed man, who, by official irony, was 
said to be “in charge” of it. 

* * * * * * 

“TI knew there were women-dowdies in Ben- 
gal. They come up here sometimes. But I 
didn’t know that there were men-dowds, too.” 

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis 
Yeere that his clothes wore the mark of the 
ages. It will be seen that his friendship with 
Mrs. Hauksbee had made great strides. 

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never 
so happy as when he is talking about himself. 
From Otis Yeere’s lips Mrs. Hauksbee, before 
long, learned everything that she wished to 
know about the subject of her experiment: 
learned what manner of life he had led in what 
she vaguely called “those awful cholera dis- 
tricts”; learned, too, but this knowledge came 
later, what manner of life he had purposed to 
lead and what dreams he had dreamed in the 
year of grace ’77, before the reality had 
knocked the heart out of him. Very pleasant 
are the shady bridle-paths round Prospect Hill 
for the telling of such confidences. 

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Mal- 
lowe. “Not yet. I must wait until the man is 
properly dressed, at least. Great Heavens, is it 


ea THE EDUCATION 


possible that he doesn’t know what an honor it 
is to be taken up by Me!” 

Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty 
as one of her failings. 

“Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!” murmured 
Mrs. Mallowe, with her sweetest smile, to Otis. 
“Oh you men, you men! Here are our Pun- 
jabis growling because you've monopolized the 
nicest woman in Simla. They'll tear you to 
pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr. Yeere.” 

Mrs. Mallowe rattled down-hill, having sat- 
isfied herself, by a glance through the fringe 
of her sunshade, of the effect of her words. 

The shot went home. Of a surety Otis 
Yeere was somebody in this bewildering whirl 
of Simla—had monopolized the nicest woman 
in it and the Punjabis were growling. The 
notion justified a mild glow of vanity. He 
had never looked upon his acquaintance with 
Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter for general interest. 

The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feel- 
ing to the man of no account. It was intensi- 
fied later in the day when a luncher at the 
Club said, spitefully, “Well, for a debilitated 
Ditcher, Yeere, you are going it. Hasn’t any 
kind friend told you that she’s the most dan- 
gerous woman in Simla?” 7 

Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh 


OF OTIS YEERE 25 


when, would his new clothes be ready? He 
descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs. 
Hauksbee, coming over the Church Ridge in 
her ‘rickshaw, looked down upon him approv- 
ingly. “He’s learning to carry himself as if 
he were a man, instead of a piece of furniture, 
—and,” she screwed up her eyes to see the bet- 
ter through the sunlight—‘“he is a man when 
he holds himself like that. Oh blessed Conceit, 
what should we be without you?” 

With the new clothes came a new stock of 
self-confidence. Otis Yeere discovered that he 
could enter a room without breaking into a 
gentle perspiration—could cross one, even to 
talk to Mrs, Hauksbee, as though rooms were 
meant to be crossed. He was for the first time 
in nine years proud of himself, and contented 
with his life, satisfied with his new clothes, 
and rejoicing in the friendship of Mrs. Hauks- 
bee. 

“Conceit is what the poor fellow wants,” she 
said in confidence to Mrs. Mallowe. “TI believe 
they must use Civilians to plough the fields 
with in Lower Bengal. You see I have to be- 
gin from the very beginning—haven’t I? But 
you'll admit, won’t you, dear, that he is im- 
mensely improved since I took him in hand. 
Only give me a little more time and he won't 
know himself.” 


26 THE EDUCATION 


Indeed, Yeere was rapidly beginning to for- 
get what he had been. One of his own rank 
and file put the matter brutally when he asked 
Yeere, in reference to nothing, “And who has 
been making you a Member of Council, lately? 
You carry the side of half a dozen of ’em.”’ 

“I—I’m awf-ly sorry. I didn’t mean it, 
you know,” said Yeere, apologetically. 

“There'll be no holding you,” continued the 
old stager, grimly. “Climb down, Otis—climb 
down, and get all that beastly affectation 
knocked out of you with fever! Three thou- 
sand a month wouldn’t support it.” 

Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauks- 
bee. He had come to look upon her as his 
Mother Confessor. : 

“And you apologized!’ she said. “Oh, 
shame! I hate a man who apologizes. Never 
apologize for what your friend called ‘side.’ 
Never! It’s a man’s business to be insolent and 
overbearing until he meets with a stronger. 
Now, you bad boy, listen to me.” 

Simply and straightforwardly, as the ’rick- 
shaw loitered round Jakko, Mrs. Hauksbee 
preached to Otis Yeere the Great Gospel of 
Conceit, illustrating it with living pictures en- 
countered during their Sunday afternoon 


stroll. Kip. 6A 


OF OTIS YEERE 27 


“Good gracious!’ she ended, with the per- 
sonal argument, “‘you’ll apologize next for be- 
ing my attaché?” 

“Never!” said Otis Yeere. “That’s another 
thing altogether. I shall always be’— 

“What’s coming?” thought Mrs. Hauksbee. 

“Proud of that,” said Otis. 

“Safe for the present,” she said to herself, 

“But I’m afraid I have grown conceited. 
Like Jeshurun, you know. When he waxed 
fat, then he kicked. It’s the having no worry 
on one’s mind and the Hill air, I suppose.” 

“Hill air, indeed!’ said Mrs. Hauksbee to 
herself. “He'd have been hiding in the Club 
till the last day of his leave, if I hadn’t dis- 
covered him.”’ And aloud— 

“Why shouldn’t you be? You have every 
right to.” 

“I! Why?” 

“Oh, hundreds of things. I’m not going to 
waste this lovely afternoon by explaining; but 
I know you have. What was that heap of 
manuscript you showed me about the grammar 
of the aboriginal—what’s their names ?” 

“Gullals, A piece of nonsense. I’ve far too 
much work to do to bother over Gullals now. 
You should see my District. Come down with 
your husband some day and I'll show you 

Kip. 6—B 


28 THE EDUCATION 


round. Such a lovely place in the Rains! A 
sheet of water with the railway-embankment 
and the snakes sticking out, and in the sum- 
mer, green flies and green squash. The people 
would die of fear if you shook a dogwhip at 
‘em. But they know you're forbidden to do 
that, so they conspire to make your life a bur- 
den to you. My District’s worked by some 
man at Darjiling, on the strength of a native 
pleader’s false reports. Oh it’s a heavenly 
place!’’ 

Otis Yeere laughed bitterly. 

“There’s not the least necessity that you 
should stay in it. Why do you?” 

“Because I must. How’m I to get out of 
ha dag 

“How! In a hundred and fifty ways. If 
there weren’t so many people on the road, I’d 
like to box your ears. Ask, my dear boy, ask! 
Look! There is young Hexarly with six years’ 
service and half you talents. He asked for 
what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by 
the Convent! There’s McArthurson who has 
come to his present position by asking—sheer, 
downright asking—after he had pushed him- 
self out of the rank and file. One man is as 
good as another in your service—believe me. 
I’ve seen Simla. for more seasons than I care 


OF OTIS YEERE 29 


to think about. Do you stppose men are 
chosen for appointments because of their spe- 
cial fitness beforehand? You have all passed 
a high test—what do you call it ?—in the begin- 
ning, and, except for the few who have gone 
altogether to the bad, you can all work hard. 
Asking does the rest. Call it cheek, call it in- 
solence, call it anything you like, but ask! 
Men argue—yes, I know what men say—that 
a man, by the mere audacity of his request, 
must have some good in him. A weak man 
doesn’t say: ‘Give me this and that.’ He 
whines: ‘Why haven’t I been given this and 
that?’ If you were in the Army, I should say 
learn to spin plates or play a tambourine with 
your toes. As it is—ask! You belong to a 
Service that ought to be able to command the 
Channel Fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes’ 
notice, and yet you hesitate over asking to es- 
cape from a squashy green district where you 
admit you are not master. Drop the Bengal 
Government altogether. Even Darjiling is a 
little out-of-the-way hole. I was there once, 
and the rents were extortionate. Assert your- 
self. Get the Government of India to take you 
over. Try to get on the Frontier, where every 
man has a grand chance if he can trust him- 
self. Go somewhere! Do something! You 


30 THE EDUCATION 


have twice the wits and three times the pres- 
ence of the men up here, and, and’’—Mrs. 
Hauksbee paused for breath; then continued— 

“and in any way you look at it, you sha 4: to. 
You who could go so far!” 

“I don’t know,” said Yeere, rather taken 
aback by the unexpected eloquence. “I haven’t 
such a good opinion of myself.” 

It was not strictly Platonic, but it was 
Policy. Mrs. Hauksbee laid her hand lightly 
upon the ungloved paw that rested on the 
turned-back ’rickshaw hood, and, looking the 
man full in the face, said tenderly, almost too 
tenderly, “Z believe in you if you mistrust your- 
self. Is that enough, my friend?” 

“It is enough,” answered Otis, very 
solemnly. 

He was silent for a long time, redreaming 
the dreams that he had dreamed eight years 
ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-light- 
ning through Sous cloud, the light of Mrs. 
Hauksbee’s icles eyes. 

Curious and impenetrable are the mazes of 
Simla life—the only existence in this desolate — 
land worth the living. Gradually it went 
abroad among men and women,’in the pauses 
between dance, play and Gymkhana, that Otis 
Yeere, the man with the newly-lit light of self- 


OF OTIS YEERE 31 


confidence in his eyes, had “done something 
decent” in the wilds whence he came. He had 
brought an erring Municipality to reason, ap- 
propriated the funds on his own responsibility, 
and saved the lives of hundreds. He knew 
more about the Guilals thax any living man. 
Had a vast knowledge of the aboriginal tribes; 
was, in spite of his juniority, the greatest au- 
thority on the aboriginal Gullals. No one quite 
knew who or what the Gullals were till The 
Mussuck, who had been calling on Mrs, 
Hauksbee, and prided himself upon picking 
people’s brains, explained they were a tribe of 
ferocious hillmen, somewhere near Sikkim, 
whose friendship even the Great Indian Empire 
would find it worth her while to secure. Now 
we know that Otis Yeere had showed Mrs. 
Hauksbee his MS. notes of six years’ standing 
on these same Guilals. He had told her, too, 
how, sick and shaken with the fever their negli- 
gence had bred, crippled by the loss of his pet 
clerk, and savagely angry at the desolation in 
his charge, he had once damned the collective 
eyes of his “intelligent local board” for a set 
of haramgadas. Which act of “brutal and 
tyrannous oppression” won him a Reprimand 
Royal from the Bengal Government; but in 
the anecdote as amended for Northern con- 


32 THE EDUCATION 


sumption we find no record of this. Hence we 
are forced to conclude that Mrs. Hauksbee 
edited his reminiscences before sowing them in 
idle ears, ready, as she well knew, to exag- 
gerate good or evil. And Otis Yeere bore him- 
self as befitted the hero of many tales. 

“You can talk to me when you don’t fall 
into a brown study. Talk now, and talk your 
brightest and best,” said Mrs. Hauksbee. 

Otis needed no spur. Look to a man who 
has the counsel of a woman of or above the 
world to back him. So long as he keeps his 
head, he can meet both sexes on equal ground 
—an advantage never intended by Providence, 
who fashioned Man on one day and Woman 
on another, in sign that neither should know 
more than a very little of the other’s life. 
Such a man goes far, or, the counsel being . 
withdrawn, collapses suddenly while his world 
seeks the reason. 

Generalled by Mrs. Hauksbee, who, again, 
had all Mrs. Mallowe’s wisdom at her disposal, 
proud of himself and, in the end, believing in 
himself because he was believed in, Otis Yeere 
stood ready for any fortune that might befall, 
certain that it would be good. He would fight 
for his own hand, and intended that this sec- 
ond struggle should lead to better issue than 


OF OTIS YEERE 33 


the first helpless surrender of the bewildered 
*Stunt. 

What might have happened, it is impossible 
to say. This lamentable thing befell, bred 
directly by a statement of Mrs. Hauksbee that 
she would spend the next season in Darjiling. 

“Are you certain of that?” said Otis Yeere. 

“Quite. We're writing about a house now.” 

Otis Yeere “stopped dead,” as Mrs. Hauks- 
bee put it in discussing the relapse with Mrs. 
Mallowe. 

“He has behaved,” she said, angrily, “just 
like Captain Kerrington’s pony—only Otis is a 
donkey—at the last Gymkhana. Planted his 
forefeet and refused to go on another step. 
Polly, my man’s going to disappoint me. 
What shall I do?” 

As a rule, Mrs. Mallowe does not approve of 
staring, but on this occasion she opened her 
eyes to the utmost. 

“You have managed cleverly so far,’ she 
said. “Speak to him, and ask him what he 
means.” 

“T will—at to-night’s dance.” 

“No—o, not at a dance,” said Mrs. Mallowe, 
cautiously. ‘Men are never themselves quite 
at dances. Better wait till to-morrow morn- 


be 329 
. 


ing 


34 THE EDUCATION 


“Nonsense. If he’s going to ’vert in this ine 
sane way, there isn’t a day to lose. Are you 
going? No? Then sit up for me, there’s a 
dear. I shan’t stay longer than supper under 
any circumstances.” 

Mrs. Mallowe waited through the evening, 
looking long and earnestly into the fire, and 
sometimes smiling to herself. 

Xx * *k * * * 

“Oh! oh! oh! That man’s an idiot! A 
raving, positive idiot! I’m sorry I ever saw 
him!’ | 

Mrs. Hauksbee burst into Mrs. Mallowe’s 
house, at midnight, almost in tears. 

“What in the world has happened?” said 
Mrs. Mallowe, but her eyes showed that she 
had guessed an answer. 

“Happened! Everything has happened! He 
was there. I went to him and said, “Now, 
what does this nonsense mean?’ Don’t laugh, 
dear, I can’t bear it. But you know what I 
mean I said. Then it was a square, and I sat 
it out with him and wanted an explanation, and 
he said— Oh! I haven’t patience with such 
idiots! You know what I said about going to 
Darjiling next year? It doesn’t matter to me 
where I go. I’d have changed the Station and 
lost the rent to have saved this. He said, in 


OF OTIS YEERE 38 


so many words, that he wasn’t going to try to 
work up any more, because—because he would 
be shifted into a province away from Daryil- 
ing, and his own District, where these creatures 
are, is within a day’s journey’— 

“Ah-hh!” said Mrs. Mallowe, in a tone of 
one who has successfully tracked an obscure 
word through a large dictionary. 

“Did you ever hear of anything so mad—so 
absurd? And he had the ball at his feet. He 
had only to kick it! I would have made him 
anything! Anything in the wide world. He 
could have gone to the world’s end. I would 
have helped him. I made him, didn’t I, Polly? 
Didn’t I create that man? Doesn’t he owe 
everything to me? And to reward me, just 
when everything was nicely arranged, by this 
lunacy that spoiled everything!” 

“Very few men understand your devotion 
thoroughly.” 

“Oh, Polly, don’t laugh at me! I give men 
up from this hour. I could have killed him 
then and there. What right had this man—this 
Thing I had picked out of his filthy paddy- 
fields—to make love to me?”’ 

“He did that, did he?” 

“He did. I don’t remember half he said, I 
was so angry. Oh, but such a funny thing 


36 THE EDUCATION 


happened! I can’t help laughing at it now, 
though I felt nearly ready to cry with rage. 
He raved and I stormed—lI’m afraid we must 
have made an awful noise in our kala juggah. 
Protect my character, dear, if it’s all over 
Simla to-morrow—and then he bobbed for- 
ward in the middle of this insanity—I firmly 
believe the man’s demented—and kissed me!” 

“Morals above reproach,” purred Mrs. Mal- 
lowe. 

“So they were—so they were! It was the 
most absurd kiss. I don’t believe he’d ever 
kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my 
head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking 
dab, just on the end of the chin—here.” Mrs, 
Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with 
her fan. “Then, of course, I was furiously 
angry, and told him that he was no gentleman, 
and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. 
He was crushed so easily that I couldn’t be — 
very angry. ‘Then I came away straight to 
you.” 

“Was this before or after supper ?” 

“Oh! before—oceans before. Isn’t it per- 
fectly disgusting?” 

“Let me think. I withhold judgment till to- 
morrow. Morning brings counsel.” 

But morning brought only a servant with a 


OF OTIS YEERE 37 


dainty bouquet of Annandale roses for Mrs. 
Hauksbee to wear at the dance at Viceregal 
Lodge that night.” 

“He doesn’t seem to be very penitent,” said 
Mrs. Mallowe. ‘“What’s the billet-doux in the 
centre ?”’ 

Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly folded 
note,—another accomplishment that she had 
taught Otis,—read it, and groaned tragically. 

“Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! 
Is it his own, do you think? Oh, that I ever 
built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot!’ 

“No. It’s a quotation from Mrs. Browning, 
and, in view of the facts of the case, as Jack 
says, uncommonly well chosen. Listen— 


“ ‘Sweet thou hast trod on a heart, 
Pass! There’s a world full of men; 

And women as fair as thou art, 
Must do such things now and then. 


“*Thou only hast stepped unaware— 
Malice not one can impute; 
And why should a heart have been there, 
In the way of a fair woman’s foot?’” 


“Tt didn’t—I didn’t—I didn’t!” said Mrs. 
Hauksbee, angrily, her eyes filling with tears; 
“there was no malice at all. Oh, it’s too vexa- 
tous!” 

“You've misunderstood the compliment,” 


38 THE EDUCATION 


said Mrs. Mallowe. “He clears you completely 
and—ahem—lI should think by this, that he has 
cleared completely too. My experience of men 
is that when they begin to quote poetry, they 
are going to flit. Like swans singing before 
they die, you know.” 

“Polly, you take my sorrows in a most un- 
feeling way.” 

“Do I? Is it so terrible? If he’s hurt your 
vanity, I should say that you’ve done a certain 
amount of damage to his heart.” 

“Oh, you never can tell about a man!” said 


Mrs. Hauksbee, 


AT THE PITS MOUTH 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


Men say it was a stolen tide— 
The Lord that sent it he knows all, 
But in mine ear will aye abide 
The message that the bells let fall, 
And awesome bells they were to me, 
That in the dark rang, “Enderby.” 
—Jean Ingelow. 


0 pte upon a time there was a Man and 
his Wife and a Tertium Quid. 

All three were unwise, but the Wife was the 
unwisest. The Man should have looked after 
his Wife, who should have avoided the Ter- 
tium Quid, who, again, should have married 
a wife of his own, after clean and open flirta- 
tions, to which nobody can possibly object, 
round Jakko or Observatory Hill. When you 
see a young man with his pony in a white 
lather, and his hat on the back of his head 
flying down-hill at fifteen miles an hour to 
meet a girl who will be properly surprised to 
meet him, you naturally approve of that young 
man, and wish him Staff appointments, and 
take an interest in his welfare, and, as the 


4i 


42 AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


proper time comes, give them sugar-tongs or 
side-saddles according to your means and gen- 
erosity. 

The Tertium Quid flew down-hill on horse- 
back, but it was to meet the Man’s Wife; and 
when he flew up-hill it was for the same end. 
The Man was in the Plains, earning money 
for his Wife to spend on dresses and four- 
hundred-rupee bracelets, and inexpensive lux- 
uries of that kind. He worked very hard, and 
sent her a letter or a post-card daily. She 
also wrote to him daily, and said that she was 
longing for him to come up to Simla. The 
Tertium Quid used to lean over her shoulder 
and laugh as she wrote the notes. Then the 
two would ride to the Post Office together. 

Now, Simla is a strange place and its cus- 
toms are peculiar; nor is any man who has not 
spent at least ten seasons there qualified to pass 
judgment on circumstantial evidence, which is 
the most untrustworthy in the Courts. For 
these reasons, and for others which need not 
appear, I decline to state positively whether 
there was anything irretrievably wrong in the 
relations between the Man’s Wife and the Ter- 
tium Quid. If there was, and hereon you must 
form your own opinion, it was the Man’s 
Wife’s fault. She was kittenish in her man- 


“She was taken out of the saddle a limp heap.” 


At the Pit’s Mouth, p. 51 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 43 


ners, wearing generally an air of soft and fluffy 
innocence. But she was deadly learned and 
evil-instructed; and now and again, when the 
mask dropped, men saw this, shuddered and— 
almost drew back. Men are occasionally par- 
ticular, and the least particular men are always 
the most exacting. 

Simla is eccentric in its fashion of treating 
friendships. Certain attachments which have 
set and crystallized through half a dozen sea- 
sons acquire almost the sancity of the marriage 
bond, and are revered as such. Again, certain 
attachments equally old, and, to all appearance, 
equally venerable, never seem to win any recog- 
nized official status; while a chance-sprung ac- 
quaintance, not two months born, steps into 
the place which by right belongs to the senior. 
There is no law reducible to print which reg- 
ulates these affairs. 

Some people have a gift which secures them 
infinite toleration, and others have not. The 
Man’s Wife had not. If she looked over the 
garden wall, for instance, women taxed her 
with stealing their husbands. She complained 
pathetically that she was not allowed to choose 
her own friends. When she put up her big 
white muff to her lips, and gazed over it and 
under her eyebrows at you as she said this 


44 AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


thing, you felt that she had been infamously 
misjudged, and that all the other women’s in- 
stincts were all wrong; which was absurd. 
She was not allowed to own the Tertium Quid 
in peace; and was so strangely constructed that 
she would not have enjoyed peace had she been 
so permitted. She preferred some semblance 
of intrigue to cloak even her most common- 
place actions. 

After two months of riding first round 
Jakko, then Elysium, then Summer Hill, then 
Observatory Hill, then under Jutogh, and last- 
ly up and down the Cart Road as far as the 
Tara Devi gap in the dusk, she said to the Ter- 
tium Quid, “Frank, people say we are too much 
together, and people are so horrid.” 

The Tertium Quid pulled his moustache, and 
replied that horrid people were unworthy of 
the consideration of nice people. 

“But they have done more than talk—they 
have written—written to my hubby—I’m sure 
of it,” said the Man’s Wife, and she pulled a 
letter from her husband out of her saddle- 
pocket and gave it to the Tertium Quid. | 

It was an honest letter, written by an honest 
man, then stewing in the Plains on two hun- 
dred rupees a month (for he allowed his wife 
eight hundred and fifty), and in a silk banian 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 45 


and cotton trousers. It is said that, perhaps, 
she had not thought of the unwisdom of allow- 
ing her name to be so generally coupled with 
the Tertium Quid’s; that she was too much of 
a child to understand the dangers of that sort 
of thing; that he, her husband, was the last 
man in the world to interfere jealously with her 
little amusements and interests, but that it 
would be better were she to drop the Tertium 
Quid quietly and for her husband’s sake. The 
letter was sweetened with many pretty little 
pet names, and it amused the Tertium Quid 
considerably. He and She laughed over it, so 
that you, fifty yards away, could see their 
shoulders shaking while the horses slouched 
along side by side. 

Their conversation was not worth reporting. 
The upshot of it was that, next day, no one saw 
the Man’s Wife and the Tertium Quid to- 
gether. They had both gone down to the 
Cemetery, which, as a rule, is only visited 

officially by the inhabitants of Simla. 

A Simla funeral with the clergyman riding, 
the mourners riding, and the coffin creaking as 
it swings between the bearers, is one of the 
most depressing things on this earth, particu- 
larly when the procession passes under the wet, 
dank dip beneath the Rockcliffe Hotel, where 


46 AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


the sun is shut out, and all the hill streams are 
wailing and weeping together as they go down 
the valleys. 

Occasionally, folk tend the graves, but we in 
India shift and are transferred so often that, 
at the end of the second year, the Dead have no 
friends—only acquaintances who are far too 
busy amusing themselves up the hill to attend 
to old partners. The idea of using a Cemetery 
as a rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. 
A man would have said simply “Let people 
talk. We'll go down the Mall.” A woman is 
made differently, especially if she be such a 
woman as the Man’s Wife. She and the Ter- 
tium Quid enjoyed each other’s society among 
the graves of men and women whom they had 
known and danced with aforetime. | 

They used to take a big horse-blanket and sit 
on the grass a little to the left of the lower end, 
where there is a dip in the ground, and where 
the occupied graves stop short and the ready- 
made ones are not ready. Each well-regulated 
Indian Cemetery keeps half a dozen graves 
permanently open for contingencies and in- 
cidental wear and tear. In the Hills these are 
more usually baby’s size, because children who 
come up weakened and sick from the Plains 
often succumb to the effects of the Rains in the 


—— a ee ee 


ee 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 47 


Hills or get pneumonia from their ayahs tak- 
ing them through damp pine-woods after the 
sun has set. In Cantonments, of course, the 
man’s size is more in request; these arrange- 
ments varying with the climate and popula- 
tion. 

One day when the Man’s Wife and the Ter- 
tium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, 
they saw some coolies breaking ground. They 
had marked out a full-size grave, and the Ter- 
tium Quid asked them whether any Sahib was 
sick. They said that they did not know; but 
it was an order that they should dig a Sahib’s 
grave. 

“Work away,” said the Tertium Quid, “and 
let’s see how it’s done.” 

The coolies worked away, and the Man’s 
Wife and the Tertium Quid watched and 
talked for a couple of hours while the grave 
was being deepened. Then a coolie, taking the 
earth in baskets as it was thrown up, jumped 
over the grave. 

“That’s queer,” said the Tertium Quid. 
“Where’s my ulster ?” 

“What’s queer ?” said the Man’s Wife. 

“I have got a chill down my back—just as 
if a goose had walked over my grave.” 

“Why do you look at the thing, then?” said 
the Man’s Wife. “Let us go.” 


4s AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


The Tertium Quid stood at the head of the 
grave, and stared without answering for a 
space. Then he said, dropping a pebble down, 
“It is nasty—and cold; horribly cold. I don’t 
think I shall come to the Cemetery any more. 
I don’t think grave-digging is cheerful.” 

The two talked and agreed that the Cemetery 
was depressing. They also arranged for a ride 
next day out from the Cemetery through the 
Mashobra Tunnel up to Fagoo and back, be- 
cause all the world was going to a garden-party 
at Viceregal Lodge, and all the people of 
Mashobra would go too. 

Coming up the Cemetery road, the Tertium 
Quid’s horse tried to bolt up-hill, being tired 
with standing so long, and managed to strain 
a back sinew. 

“T shall have to take the mare to-morrow,” 
said the Tertium Quid, “and she will stand 
nothing heavier than a snaffle.”’ 

They made their arrangements to meet in the 
Cemetery, after allowing all the Mashobra peo- 
ple time to pass into Simla. That night it 
rained heavily, and, next day, when the Ter- 
tium Quid came to the trysting-place, he saw 
that the new grave had a foot of water in it, 
the ground being a tough and sour clay. 

“Jove! That looks beastly,” said the Ter- 


a Oe ee - 


ee ee a Pe 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 49 


tium Quid. ‘Fancy being boarded up and 
dropped into that well!” 

They then started off to Fagoo, the mare 
playing with the snaffle and picking her way 
as though she were shod with satin, and the 
sun shining divinely. The road below Mas- 
hobra to Fagoo is officially styled the Himalay- 
an-Thibet Road; but in spite of its name it is 
not much more than six feet wide in most 
places, and the drop into the valley below may 
be anything between one and two thousand 
feet. 

“Now we're going to Thibet,”’ said the 
Man’s Wife merrily, as the horses drew near to 
Fagoo. She was riding on the cliff-side. 

“Into Thibet,” said the Tertium Quid, “ever 
so far from people who say horrid things, and 
hubbies who write stupid letters. With you— 
to the end of the world!” 

A coolie carrying a log of wood came round 
a corner, and the mare went wide to avoid him 
—forefeet in and haunches out, as a sensible 
mare should go. 

“To the world’s end,” said the Man’s Wife, 
and looked unspeakable things over her near 
shoulder at the Tertium Quid. 

He was smiling, but, while she looked, the 
smile froze stiff as it were on his face, and 


50 AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 


changed to a nervous grin—the sort of grin 
men wear when they are not quite easy in their 
saddles. The mare seemed to be sinking by the 
stern, and her nostrils cracked while she was 
trying to realize what was happening. The 
rain of the night before had rotted the drop- 
side of the Himalayan-Thibet Road, and it was 
giving way under her. “What are you do- 
ing?” said the Man’s Wife. The Tertium 
Quid gave no answer. He grinned nervously 
and set his spurs into the mare, who rapped 
with her forefeet on the road, and the struggle 
began. The Man’s Wife screamed, “Oh, 
Frank, get off!” 

But the Tertium Quid was glued to the sad- 
dle—his face blue and white—and he looked 
into the Man’s Wife’s eyes. Then the Man’s 
Wife clutched at the mare’s head and caught 
her by the nose instead of the bridle. The 
brute threw up her head and went down with 
a scream, the Tertium Quid upon her, and the 
nervous grin still set on his face. 

The Man’s Wife heard the tinkle-tinkle of 
little stones and loose earth falling off the road- 
way, and the sliding roar of the man and horse 
going down. Then everything was quiet, and 
she called on Frank to leave his mare and walk 
up. But Frank did not answer. He was un- 


AT THE PIT’S MOUTH 51 


derneath the mare, nine hundred feet below, 
spoiling a patch of Indian corn. 

As the revellers came back from Viceregal 
Lodge in the mists of the evening, they met a 
temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily 
mad horse, swinging round the corners, with 
her eyes and her mouth open, and her head 
like the head of a Medusa. She was stopped 
by a man at the risk of his life, and taken out 
of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank 
to explain herself. This wasted twenty min- 
utes, and then she was sent home in a lady’s 
*rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her 
hands picking at her riding-gloves. 

She was in bed through the following three 
days, which were rainy; so she missed attend- 
ing the funeral of the Tertium Quid, who was 
lowered into eighteen inches of water, instead 
of the twelve to which he had first objected. 


Sit 
res 


MA WavcIuE cCOMNDy © 46 


i's r > f » 


v7 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, 
therefore the misery of man is great upon him, 
Eccles, viii. 6. 


ATE and the Government of India have | 
turned the Station of Kashima into a 
prison; and, because there is no help for the 
poor souls who are now lying there in torment, 
I write this story, praying that the Govern- 
ment of India may be moved to scatter the Eu- 
ropean population to the four winds. 
Kashima is bounded on all sides by the rock- 
tipped circle of the Dosehri hills. In Spring, it 
is ablaze with roses; in Summer, the roses die 
and the hot winds blow from the hills; in Au- 
tumn, the white mists from the jhils cover the 
place as with water, and in Winter the frosts 
nip everything young and tender to earth- 
level. There is but one view in Kashima—a 
stretch of perfectly flat pasture and plough- 
land, running up to the grey-blue scrub of the 
Dosehri hills. 
There are no amusements, except snipe and 
tiger shooting; but the tigers have been long 


20 


56 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


since hunted from their lairs in the rock-caves, 
and the snipe only come once a year. Nar- 
karra—one hundred and forty-three miles by 
road—is the nearest station to Kashima. But 
Kashima never goes to Narkarra, where there 
are at least twelve English people. It stays 
within the circle of the Dosehri hills. 

All Kashima acquits Mrs. Vansuythen of 
any intention to doharm; but all Kashima 
knows that she, and she alone, brought about 
their pain. 

Boulte, the Engineer, Mrs. Boulte, and Cap- 
tain Kurrell know this. They are the English 
population of Kashima, if we except Major 
Vansuythen, who is of no importance what- 
ever, and Mrs. Vansuythen, who is the most 
important of all. 

You must remember, though you will not 
understand, that all laws weaken in a small and 
hidden community where there is no public 
opinion. When a man is absolutely alone in a 
Station he runs a certain risk of falling into 
evil ways. This risk is multiplied by every ad- 
dition to the population up to twelve—the Jury 
number. After that, fear and consequent re- 
straint begin, and humen action becomes less 
grotesquely jerky. 

There was deep peace in Kashima till Mrs. 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 57 


Vansuythen arrived. She was a charming 
woman, every one said so everywhere; and 
she charmed every one. In spite of this, or, 
perhaps, because of this, since Fate is so per- 
verse, she cared only for one man, and he was 
Major Vansuythen. Had she been plain or 
stupid, this matter would have been intelligible 
to Kashima. But she was a fair woman, with 
very still grey eyes, the color of a lake just be- 
fore the light of the sun touches it. No man 
who had seen those eyes could, later on, ex- 
plain what fashion of woman she was to look 
upon. The eyes dazzled him. Her own sex 
said that she was “not bad looking, but spoiled 
by pretending to be so grave.’’ And yet her 
gravity was natural. It was not her habit to 
smile. She merely went through life, look- 
ing at those who passed; and the women ob- 
jected while the men fell down and wor- 
shipped. 

She knows and is deeply sorry for the evil 
she has done to Kashima; but Major Vansuy- 
then cannot understand why Mrs. Boulte does 
not drop in to afternoon tea at least three 
times a week. “When there are only two 
women in one Station they ought to see a great 
deal of each other,” says Major Vansuythen. 

Long and long before ever Mrs. Vansuythen 


58 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


came out of those far-away places where there 
is society and amusement, Kurrell had discov- 
ered that Mrs. Boulte was the one woman in 
the world for hm and—you dare not blame 
them. Kashima was as out of the world as 
Heaven or the Other Place, and the Dosehri 
hills kept their secret well. Boulte had no con- 
cern in the matter. He was in camp for a fort- 
night at a time. He was a hard, heavy man, 
and neither Mrs. Boulte nor Kurrell pitied 
him. They had all Kashima and each other 
for their very, very own; and Kashima was the 
Garden of Eden in those days. When Boulte 
returned from his wanderings he would slap 
Kurrell between the shoulders and call him 
“old fellow,” and the three would dine to- 
eether. Kashima was happy then when the 
judgment of God seemed almost as distant as 
Narkarra or the railway that ran down to the 
sea. But the Government sent Major Van- 
suythen to Kashima, and with him came his 
wife. 

The etiquette of Kashima is much the same 
as that of a desert island. When a stranger is 
cast away there, all hands go down to the 
shore to make him welcome. Kashima assem- 
bled at the masonry platform close to the Nar- 
karra Road, and spread tea for the Vansuy- 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 59 


thens. That ceremony was reckoned a for- 
mal call, and made them free of the Station, its 
rights and privileges. When the Vansuythens 
were settled down, they gave a tiny house- 
warming to all Kashima; and that made Ka- 
shima free of their house, according to the im- 
memorial usage of the Station. 

Then the Rains came, when no one could go 
_into camp, and the Narkarra Road was washed 
away by the Kasun River, and in the cup-like 
pastures of Kashima the cattle waded knee- 
deep. The clouds dropped down from the 
Dosehri hills and covered everything. 

At the end of the Rains, Boulte’s manner 
toward his wife changed, and became demon- 
stratively affectionate. They had been mar- 
ried twelve years, and the change startled Mrs. 
Boulte, who hated her husband with the hate 
of a woman who has met with nothing but 
kindness from her mate, and, in the teeth of 
this kindness, has done him a great wrong. 
Moreover, she had her own troubles to fight 
with—her watch to keep over her own prop- 
erty, Kurrell. For two months the Rains had 
hidden the Dosehri hills and many other 
things besides; but, when they lifted, they 
showed Mrs. Boulte that her man among men, 


her Ted—for she called him Ted in the old 
Kip. 6—C_ 


60 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


days when Boulte was out of earshot—was 
slipping the links of the allegiance. 

“The Vansuythen Woman has taken him,” 
Mrs. Boulte said to herself; and when Boulte 
was away, wept over her belief, in the face of 
the over-vehement blandishments of Ted. 
Sorrow in Kashima is as fortunate as Love, 
because there is nothing to weaken it save the 
flight of Time. Mrs. Boulte had never 
breathed her suspicion to Kurrell because she 
was not certain; and her nature led her to be 
very certain before she took steps in any di- 
rection. That is why she behaved as she did. 

Boulte came into the house one evening, and 
leaned against the door-posts of the drawing- 
room, chewing his moustache. Mrs. Boulte 
was putting some flowers into a vase. There 
is a pretence of civilization even in Kashima. 

“Tittle woman,” said Boulte, quietly, “do 
you care for me?” 

“TImmensely,”’ said she, with a laugh. “Can 
you ask me?” 

“But I’m serious,’ said Boulte. “Do you 
care for me?” 

Mrs. Boulte dropped the flowers, and turned 
round quickly. “Do you want an honest an- 
swer ?”’ 

““Ye-es, I’ve asked for it.” 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 61 


Mrs. Boulte spoke in a low, even voice for 
five minutes, very distinctly, that there might 
be no misunderstanding her meaning. When 
Samson broke the pillars of Gaza, he did a lit- 
tle thing, and one not to be compared to the de- 
liberate pulling down of a woman’s homestead 
about her own ears. There was no wise fe- 
male friend to advise Mrs. Boulte, the singu- 
larly cautious wife, to hold her hand. She 
struck at Boulte’s heart, because her own was 
sick with suspicion of Kurrell, and worn out 
with the long strain of watching alone 
through the Rains. There was no plan or pur- 
pose in her speaking. The sentences made 
themselves; and Boulte listened, leaning 
against the door-post with his hands in his 
pockets. When all was over, and Mrs. Boulte 
began to breathe through her nose before 
breaking out into tears, he laughed and stared 
straight in front of him at the Dosehri hills. 

“Is that all?” he said. “Thanks, I only 
wanted to know, you know.” 

“What are you going to do?” said the 
woman, between her sobs. 

“Do! Nothing. What should I do? Kill 
Kurrell or send you Home, or apply for leave 
to get a divorce? It’s two days’ dak into Nar- 
karra.”” He laughed again and went on: “I'll 


62 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


tell you what you can do. You can ask Kur- » 
rell to dinner to-morrow—no, on Thursday, 
that will allow you time to pack—and you can 
bolt with him. I give you my word I won't 
follow.” 

He took up his helmet and went out of the 
room, and Mrs. Boulte sat till the moonlight 
streaked the floor, thinking and thinking and 
thinking. She had done her best upon the spur 
of the moment to pull the house down; but it 
would not fall. Moreover, she could not un- 
derstand her husband, and she was afraid. 
Then the folly of her useless truthfulness 
struck her, and she was ashamed to write to 
Kurrell, saying: “I have gone mad and told 
everything. My husband says that I am free 
to elope with you. Get a dak for Thursday, 
and we will fly after dinner.” There was a 
cold-bloodedness about that procedure which 
did not appeal to her. So she sat still in her 
own house and thought. 

At dinner-time Boulte came back from his 
walk, white and worn and haggard, and the 
woman was touched at his distress. As the 
evening wore on, she muttered some expres- 
sion of sorrow, something approaching to con- 
trition. Boulte came out of a brown study, 
and said, “Oh, that! I wasn’t thinking about 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 63 


that. By the way, what does Kurrell say to 
the elopement ?” 

“I haven’t seen him,” said Mrs. Boulte. 
“Good God! is that all?” 

But Boulte was not listening, and her sen- 
tence ended in a gulp. | 

The next day brought no comfort to Mrs. 
Boulte, for Kurrell did not appear, and the 
new life that she, in the five minutes’ madness 
of the previous evening, had hoped to build 
out of the ruins of the old, seemed to be no 
nearer. 

Boulte ate his breakfast, advised her to see 
her Arab pony fed in the veranda, and went 
out. The morning wore through, and at mid- 
day the tension became unendurable. Mrs. 
Boulte could not cry. She had finished crying 
in the night, and now she did not want to be 
left alone. Perhaps the Vansuythen Woman 
would talk to her; and, since talking opens the 
heart, perhaps there might be some comfort to 
be found in her company. She was the only 
other woman in the Station. 

In Kashima there are no regular calling- 
hours. Every one can drop in upon every one 
else at pleasure. Mrs. Boulte put on a big 
terai hat, and walked across to the Vansuy- 
then’s house to borrow last week’s Queen. The 


64 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


two compounds touched, and instead of going 
up the drive, she crossed through the gap in 
the cactus-hedge, entering the house from the 
back. As she passed through the dining-room 
she heard, behind the purdah that cloaked the 
drawing-room door, her husband’s voice, say- 
ing— 

“But on my Honor! On my Soul and 
Honor, I tell you she doesn’t care for me. She 
told me so last night. I would have told you 
then if Vansuythen hadn’t been with you. If 
it is for her sake that you'll have nothing to 
say to me, you can make your mind easy. It’s 
Kurrell”— 

“What?” said Mrs. Vansuythen, with an 
hysterical little laugh. “Kurrell! Oh, it can’t 
be! You two must have made some horrible 
mistake. Perhaps you—you lost your temper, 
or misunderstood, or something. Things can’t 
be as wrong as you say.” 

Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defence to 
avoid the man’s pleading, and was desperately 
trying to keep him to a side-issue. 

“There must be some mistake,” she in- 
sisted, “and it can be all put right again.” 

Boulte laughed grimly. 

“Tt can’t be Captain Kurrell! He told me 
that he had never taken the least—the least in- 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 6s 


terest in your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! 
He said he had not. He swore he had not,” 
said Mrs. Vansuythen. 

The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut 
short by the entry of a little, thin woman, with 
big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuyther 
stood up with a gasp. 

“What was that you said?” asked Mrs. 
Boulte. ‘Never mind that man. What did 
Ted say to you? What did he say to you? 
What did he say to you?” 

Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the 
sofa, overborne by the trouble of her ques- 
tioner. 

“He said—I can’t remember exactly what 
he said—but I understood him to say-—that is 
—— But, really, Mrs. Boulte, isn’t it rather a 
strange question ?”’ 

“Will you tell me what he said?” repeated 
Mrs. Boulte. Even a tiger will fly before a bear 
robbed of her whelps, and Mrs. Vansuythen 
was only an ordinarily good woman. She be- 
gan in a sort of desperation: “‘Well, he said 
that he never cared for you at all, and, of 
course, there was not the least reason why he 
should have, and—and—that was all.” 

“You said he swore he had not cared for 
me. Was that true?’ 


66 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


“Yes,” said Mrs. Vansuythen, very softly. 

Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where 
she stood, and then fell forward fainting. 

“What did I tell you?’ said Boulte, as 
though the conversation had been unbroken. 
“You can see for yourself. She cares for him.” 
The light began to break into his dull mind, 
and he went on—‘‘And he—what was he say- 
ing to you?” 

But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for ex- 
planations or impassioned protestations, was 
kneeling over Mrs. Boulte. 

“Oh, you brute!’ she cried. “Are ali men 

like this? Help me to get her into my room— 
and her face is cut against the table. Oh, will 
you be quiet, and help me to carry her? I hate 
you, and I hate Captain Kurreil. Lift her up 
carefully and now—go! Go away!” 
._  Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuy- 
' then’s bedroom and departed before the storm 
of that lady’s wrath and disgust, impenitent 
and burning with jealousy. Kurrell had been 
making love to Mrs. Vansuythen—would do 
Vansuythen as great a wrong as he had done 
Boulte, who caught himself considering 
whether Mrs. Vansuythen would faint if she 
discovered that the man she loved had fore- 
sworn her. 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 67 


In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell 
came cantering along the road and pulled up 
with a cheery, “Good-mornin’. Been mashing 
Mrs. Vansuythen as usual, eh? Bad thing for 
a sober, married man, that. What will Mrs. 
Boulte say ?” 

Boulte raised his head and said, slowly, “Oh, 
you liar!’ Kurrell’s face changed. “What’s 
that?’ he asked, quickly. 

“Nothing much,” said Boulte. “Has my 
wife told you that you two are free to go off 
whenever you please? She has been good 
enough to explain the situation to me. You've 
been a true friend to me, Kurrell—old man— 
haven’t you?” 

Kurrell groaned, and tried to frame some 
sort of idiotic sentence about being willing to 
give “satisfaction.” But his interest in the 
woman was dead, had died out in the Rains, 
and, mentally, he was abusing her for her 
amazing indiscretion. It would have been so 
easy to have broken off the thing gently and 
by degrees, and now he was saddled with— 
Boulte’s voice recalled him. 

“T don’t think I should get any satisfaction 
from killing you, and I’m pretty sure you'd 
get none from killing me.” 

Then in a querulous tone, ludicrously dis- 
proportioned to his wrongs, Boulte added— 


68 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


“Seems rather. a pity that you haven’t the 
decency to keep to the woman, now you've got 
her. You've been a true friend to her too, 
haven’t your” 

Kurrell stared long and gravely. The situ- 
ation was getting beyond him. 

“What do you mean?” he said. 

Boulte answered, more to himself than the 
questioner : “My wife came over to Mrs. Van- 
suythen’s just now; and it seems you'd been 
telling Mrs. Vansuythen that you’d never 
cared for Emma. I suppose you lied, as usual. 
What had Mrs. Vansuythen to do with you, 
or you with her? Try to speak the truth for 
once in a way.” 

Kurrell took the double insult without winc- 
ing, and replied by another question: “Go on. 
What happened ?” 

“Emma fainted,” said Boulte, simply. “But, 
look here, what had you been saying to Mrs. 
Vansuythen ?”’ 

Kurrell laughed. Mrs. Boulte had, with un- 
bridled tongue, made havoc of his plans; and 
he could at least retaliate by hurting the man 
in whose. eyes he was humiliated and shown 
dishonorable. 

“Said to her? What does a man tell a lie like 
that for? I suppose I said pretty much what 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 69 


you've said, unless I’m a good deal mistaken.” 

“T spoke the truth,” said Boulte, again more 
to himself than Kurrell. ‘Emma told me she 
hated me. She has no right in me.” 

“No! I suppose not. You're only her hus- 
band, y’ know. And what did Mrs. Vansuy- 
then say after you had laid your disengaged 
heart at her feet?” 

Kurrell felt almost virtuous as he put the 
question. 

“T don’t think that. matters,” Boulte replied; 
“and it doesn’t concern you.”’ 

“But it does! I tell you it does’—began 
Kurrell, shamelessly. 

The sentence was cut by a roar of laughter 
from Boulte’s lips. Kurrell was silent for an 
instant, and then he, too, laughed—laughed 
long and loudly, rocking in his saddle. It was 
an unpleasant sound—the mirthless mirth of 
these men on the long, white line of the Nar- 
karra Road. There were no strangers in Ka- 
shima, or they might have thought that cap- 
tivity within the Dosehri hills had driven half 
the European population mad. The laughter 
ended abruptly, and Kurrell was the first to 
speak. 

“Well, what are you going to do?” 

Boulte looked up the road, and at the hills. 


70 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


“Nothing,” said he, quietly; “what’s the use? 
It’s too ghastly for anything. We must let the 
old life go on. I can only call you a hound and 
a liar, and I can’t go on calling you names for- 
ever. Besides which, I don’t feel that ’m much 
better. We can’t get out of this place. What 
is there to do” 

Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima 
and made no reply. The injured husband took 
up the wondrous tale. 

“Ride on, and speak to Emma if you want 
to. God knows I don’t care what you do.” 

He walked forward, and left Kurrell gazing 
blankly after him. Kurrell did not ride on 
either to see Mrs. Boulte or Mrs. Vansuythen. 
He sat in his saddle and thought, while his 
pony grazed by the roadside. 

The whir of approaching wheels roused him. 
Mrs. Vansuythen was driving home Mrs. 
Boulte, white and wan, with a cut on her fore- 
head. 

“Stop, please,” said Mrs. Boulte, “I want to 
speak to Ted.” 

Mrs. Vansuythen obeyed, but as Mrs. Boulte — 
leaned forward, putting her hand upon the 
splash-board of the dog-cart, Kurrell spoke. 

“T’ve seen your husband, Mrs. Boulte.” 

There was no necessity for any further ex- 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 71 


planation. The man’s eyes were fixed, not 
upon Mrs. Boulte, but her companion. Mrs. 
Boulte saw the look. 

“Speak to him!” she pleaded, turning to the 
woman at her side. ‘Oh, speak to him! Tell 
him what you told me just now. Tell him you 
hate him. Tell him you hate him!” 

She bent forward and wept bitterly, while 
the sais, impassive, went forward to hold the 
horse, Mrs. Vansuythen turned scarlet and 
dropped the reins. She wished to be no party 
to such unholy explanations, 

“T’ve nothing to do with it,” she began, 
coldly; but Mrs. Boulte’s sobs overcame her, 
and she addressed herself to the man, “I 
don’t know what I am to say, Captain Kurrell. 
T don’t know what I can call you. I think 
you’ve—you’ve behaved abominably, and she 
has cut her forehead terribly aaginst the table.” 

“Tt doesn’t hurt. It isn’t anything,” said 
Mrs. Boulte, feebly. “That doesn’t matter. 
Tell him what you told me. Say you don’t 
care for him. Oh, Ted, won’t you believe 
her ?” 

“Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that 
you were—that you were fond of her once 
upon a time,” went on Mrs. Vansuythen. 

“Well!” said Kurrell, brutally. “It seems te 


2 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 


me that Mrs. Boulte had better be fond of her 
own husband first.” 

“Stop!” said Mrs. Vansuythen. “Hear me 
first. I don’t care—I don’t want to know any- 
thing about you and Mrs. Boulte; but I want 
you to know that I hate you, that I think you 
are a cur, and that I'll never, xever speak to 
you again. Oh, I don’t dare to say what I 
think of you, you—man!” 

“T want to speak to Ted,” moaned Mrs. 
Boulte, but the dog-cart rattled on, and Kur- 
rell was left on the road, shamed, and boiling 
with wrath against Mrs. Boulte. 

He waited till Mrs. Vansuythen was driving 
back to her own house, and, she being freed 
from the embarrassment of Mrs. Boulte’s pres- 
ence, learned for the second time her opinion 
of himself and his actions. 

In the evenings, it was the wont of all Ka- 
shima to meet at the platform on the Narkarra 
Road, to drink tea, and discuss the trivialities 
of the day. Major Vansuythen and his wife 
found themselves alone at the gathering-place 
for almost the first time in their remembrance; 
and the cheery Major, in the teeth of his wife’s 
remarkably reasonable suggestion that the rest 
of the Station might be sick, insisted upon 
driving round to the two bungalows and un- 
earthing the population. 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 73 


“Sitting in the twilight!” said he, with great 
indignation, to the Boultes. ‘That'll never do! 
Hang it all, we’re one family here! You must 
come out, and so must Kurrell. I'll make him 
bring his banjo.” 

So great is the power of honest simplicity 
and a good digestion over guilty consciences 
that all Kashima did turn out, even down to 
the banjo; and the Major embraced the com- 
pany in one expansive grin. As he grinned, 
Mrs. Vansuythen raised her eyes for an in- 
stant and looked at all Kashima. Her mean- 
ing was clear. Major Vansuythen would 
never know anything. He was to be the out- 
sider in that happy family whose cage was the 
Dosehri hills. 

“You're singing villainously out of tune, 
-Kurrell,” said the Major, truthfully. “Pass 
me that banjo.” 

And he sang in excruciating-wise till the 
stars came out and all Kashima went to dinner. 
* 2 « * x * 

That was the beginning of the New Life of 
Kashima—the life that Mrs. Boulte made 
when her tongue was loosened in the twilight. 

Mrs. Vansuythen has never told the Major; 
and since he insists upon keeping up a burden- 
some geniality, she has been compelled to 


74 ‘A WAYSIDE COMEDY, 


break her vow of not speaking to Kurrell. 
This speech, which must of necessity preserve 
the semblance of politeness and interest, serves 
admirably to keep alight the flame of jealousy 
and dull hatred in Boulte’s bosom, as it awak- 
ens the same passions in his wife’s heart. Mrs. 
Boulte hates Mrs. Vansuythen because she has 
taken Ted from her, and, in some curious fash- 
ion, hates her because Mrs. Vansuythen—and 
here the wife’s eyes see far more clearly than 
the husband’s—detests Ted. And Ted—that 
gallant captain and honorable man—knows 
now that it is possible to hate a woman once 
loved, to the verge of wishing to silence her 
forever with blows. Above all, is he shocked 
that Mrs. Boulte cannot see the error of her 
ways. 

Boulte and he go out tiger-shooting together 
in all friendship. Boulte has put their rela- 
tionship on a most satisfactory footing. 

“You're a blackguard,” he says to Kurrell, 
“and I’ve lost any self-respect I may ever have 
had; but when you’re with me, I can feel cer- 
tain that you are not with Mrs. Vansuythen, 
or making Emma miserable.” 

Kurrell endures anything that Boulte may 
say to him. Sometimes they are away for three 
days together, and then the Major insists upon 


A WAYSIDE COMEDY 73 


his wife going over to sit with Mrs. Boulte; 
although Mrs. Vansuythen has repeatedly de- 
clared that she prefers her husband’s company 
to any in the world. From the way in which 
she clings to him, she would certainly seem to 
be speaking the truth. 

But, of course, as the Major says, “in a lit- 
tle Station we must all be friendly.” 


‘THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


Dis Jy i { 


mee 
i 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION. 


What rendered vain their deep desire? 

A God, a God their severance ruled, 

And bade between their shores to be 

The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea. 
Matthew Arnold. 


He. Tell your jhampanis not to hurry so, 
dear. They forget I’m fresh from the Plains. 

Sur. Sure proof that I have not been go- 
ing out with any one. Yes, they are an un- 
trained crew. Where do we go? 

He. As usual—to the world’s end. No, 
Jakko. 

Sue. Have your pony led after you, then. 
It’s a long round. 

He. And for the last time, thank Heaven. 

Sue. Do you mean that still? I didn’t dare 
to write to you about it—all these months. 

Hz. Meanit! I’ve been shaping my affairs 
to that end since Autumn. What makes you 
speak as though it had occurred to you for the 
first time? 

Suz. I! Oh!I don’t know. I’ve had long 
enough to think, too. 


79 


80 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


He. And you’ve changed your mind? 

SHE. No. You ought to know that lama 
miracle of constancy. What are your—ar- 
rangements ? 

HE. Ours, Sweetheart, please. 

SHE. Ours, be it then. My poor boy, how 
the prickly heat has marked your forehead! 
Have you ever tried sulphate of copper in 
water? 

He. It'll go away in a day or two up here. 
The arrangements are simple enough. Tonga 
in the early morning—reach Kalka at twelve 
—Umballa at seven—down, straight by night 
train, to Bombay, and the steamer of the 21st 
for Rome. That’s my idea. The Cortinent 
and Sweden-—a ten-week honeymoon. 

SHE. Ssh! Don’t talk of it in that way. It 
makes me afraid. Guy, how long have we two 
been insane? 

He. Seven months and fourteen days, I for- 
get the odd hours exactly, but I’ll think. 

SHE. I only wanted to see if you remem- 
bered. Who are those two on the Blessington 
Road? 

Her. Eabrey and the Penner woman. What 
do they matter to us? Tell me everything that 
you've been doing and saying and thinking. 

SHE. Doing little, saying less, and thinking 
a great deal. I’ve hardly been out at all, 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 81 


He. That was wrong of you. You haven't 
been moping? 

Sue. Not very much. Can you wonder that 
I’m disinclined for amusement ? 

He. Frankly, I do. Where was the difh- 
culty? 

Sur. In this only. The more people I know 
and the more I’m known here, the wider spread 
will be the news of the crash when it comes. I 
don’t like that. 

He. Nonsense. We shall be out of it. 

SHE. You think so? 

He. I’m sure of it, if there is any power in 
steam or horse-flesh to carry us away. Ha! ha! 

Snr, And the fun of the situation comes in 
—where, my Lancelot? | 

Hr. Nowhere, Guinevere. I was only think- 
ing of something. 

Sur, They say men have a keener sense of 
humor than women. Now / was thinking of 
the scandal. 

Her. Don’t think of anything so ugly. We 
shall be beyond it. 

Sue. It will be there all the same—in the 
mouths of Simla—telegraphed over India, and 
talked of at the dinners—and when He goes 
out they will stare at Him to see how He takes 
it. And we shall be dead, Guy dear—dead and 
cast into the outer darkness where there is— 


82 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


He. Love at least. Isn’t that enough? 

SHE. I have said so. 

He. And you think so still? 

SHE. What do you think? 

Hr. What have I done? It means equal 
ruin to me, as the world reckons it—outcast- 
ing, the loss of my appointment, the breaking 
off my life’s work. I pay my price. 

SHE. And are you so much above the world 
that you can afford to pay it? Am I? 

Hr. My Divinity—what else? 

SHE. A very ordinary woman I’m afraid, 
but, so far, respectable. How’d you do, Mrs. 
Middleditch? ‘Your husband? I think he’s 
riding down to Annandale with Colonel Stat- 
ters. Yes, isn’t it divine after the rain P—Guy, 
how long am I to be allowed to bow to Mrs. 
Middleditch? Till the r7th? 

Hr. Frowsy Scotchwoman! What is the 
use of bringing her into the discussion? You 
were saying? 

SHE. Nothing. Have you ever seen a man 
hanged? 

He. Yes. Once. 

SHE. What was it for? 

He. Murder, of course. 

SHE. Murder. Is that so great a sin after 
all?. I wonder how he felt before the drop fell. 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 83 


Hx. I don’t think he felt much. What a 
gruesome little woman it is this evening. 
You're shivering. Put on your cape, dear. 

Sur. I think I will. Oh! Look at the mist 
coming over Sanjaoli; and I thought we 
should have sunshine on the Ladies’ Mile! 
Let’s turn back. 

Hr. What’s the good? There’s a cloud on 
Elysium Hill, and that means it’s foggy all 
down the Mall. We'll goon. It'll blow away 
before we get to the Convent, perhaps. “Jove! 
It is chilly. 

Sue, You feel it, fresh from below. Put 
on your ulster. What do you think of my 
cape? 

Hr. Never ask a man his opinion of a 
woman’s dress when he is desperately and ab- 
jectly in love with the wearer. Let me look. 
Like everything else of yours, it’s perfect. 
Where did you get it from? 

Sue. He gave it me, on Wednesday—our 
wedding-day, you know. 

He. The Deuce he did! He’s growing gen- 
erous in his old age. D’you like all that frilly, 
punchy stuff at the throat? I don’t. 

SHE. Don’t your 


Kind Sir, o’ your courtesy, 
As you go by the town, Sir, 


84 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


’*Pray you o’ your love for me, 
Buy me a russet gown, Sir, 


He. I won’t say: “Keek into the draw-well, 
Janet, Janet.” Only wait a little, darling, and 
you shall be stocked with russet gowns and 
everything else. 

SHE. And when the frocks wear out, you'll 
get me new ones—and everything else? 

He. Assuredly. 

SHE. I wonder! 

He. Look here, Sweetheart, I didn’t spend 
two days and two nights in the train to hear 
you wonder. I thought we’d settled all that at 
Shaifazehat. 

SHE. (dreamily.) ‘At Shaifazehat? Does 
the Station go on still? That was ages and 
ages ago. It must be crumbling to pieces. All 
except the Amirtollah kutcha road. I don’t 
believe that could crumble till the Day of Judg- 
ment. 

He. You think so? What is the mood now? 

SHE. I can’t tell. How cold it is! Let us 
get on quickly. 

He. Better walk a little. Stop your jham- 
pams and get out. What’s the matter with 
you this evening, dear? 

SHE. Nothing. You must grow accustomed 
to my ways. If I’m boring you I can go home. 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 8s 


Here’s Captain Congleton coming, I dare say 
he'll be willing to escort me. 

He. Goose! Between us, too! Damn Cap- 
tain Congleton! 

SHE. Chivalrous Knight. Is it your habit 
to swear much in talking? It jars a little, and 
you might swear at me. 

He. My angel! I didn’t know what I was 
saying; and you changed so quickly that I 
couldn’t follow. Ill apologize in dust and 
ashes. 

Sue. There'll be enough of those later on— 
Good-night, Captain Congleton. Going to the 
singing-quadrilles already? What dances am | 
giving you next week? No! You must have 
written them down wrong. Five and Seven, J 
said. If you’ve made a mistake, I certainly 
don’t intend to suffer for it. You must alter 
your programme. 

He. I thought you told me that you had 
not been going out much this season. 

SHE. Quite true, but when I do I dance 
with Captain Congleton. He dances very 
nicely. 

He. And sit out with him, I suppose? 

Sue. Yes. Have you any objection? Shall 
I stand under the chandelier in future? 

He. What does he talk to you about? 

Sue. What do men talk about when they 
sit out? 


86 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


He. Ugh! Don’t! Well now I’m up, you 
must dispense with the fascinating Congleton 
for a while. I don’t like him. 

SHE (after a pause). Do you know what 
you have said? 

He. ’Can’t say that I do exactly. I’m not 
_ in the best of tempers. 

SHE. So [ see,—and feel. My true and 
faithful lover, where is your “eternal con- 
stancy,” “unalterable trust,” and ‘reverent 
devotion”? I remember those phrases; you 
seem to have forgotten them. I mention a 
man’s name—— 

He. <A good deal more than that. 

SHE. Well, speak to him about a dance— 
perhaps the last dance that I shall ever dance 
in my life before I—before I go away; and 
you at once distrust and insult me. 

Hx. I never said a word. 

SHE. How much did you imply. Guy, is 
this amount of confidence to be our stock to 
start the new life on? 

He. No, of\course not. I didn’t mean that. 
On my word and honor, I didn’t. Let it pass, 
dear. Please let it pass. 

SHE. This once—yes—and a second time, 
and again and again, all through the years 
when I shall be unable to resent it. You want 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 87 


too much, my Lancelot, and,—you know too 
much. 

He. How do you mean? 

SHE. That is a part of the punishment. 
There cannot be perfect trust between us. 

He. In Heaven’s name, why not? 

Sus. Hush! The Other Place is quite 
enough. Ask yourself. 

Hz. I don’t follow. 

SHE. You trust me so implicitly that when 


I look at another man— Never mind, Guy. 
Have you ever made love to a girl—a good 
girl? 


He. Something of the sort. Centuries ago 
—in the Dark Ages, before I ever met you, 
dear. 

Sue. Tell me what you said to her. 

He. What does a man say to a girl? I’ve 
forgotten. 

Sue. I remember. He tells her that he 
trusts her and worships the ground she walks 
on, and that he’ll love and honor and protect 
her till her dying day; and so she marries him 
in that belief. At least, I speak of one girl 
who was not protected. | 

He. Well, and then? 

Sue. And then, Guy, and then, that girl 
needs ten times the love and trust and honor— 


88 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


yes, honor—that was enough when she was 
only a mere wife if—if—the other life she 
chooses to lead is to be made even bearable. 
Do you understand? 

He. Even bearable! It'll be Paradise. 

Sue. Ah! Can you give me all I’ve asked 
for—not now, nor a few months later, but 
when you begin to think of what you might 
have done if you had kept your own appoint- 
ment and your caste here—when you begin to 
look upon me as a drag and a burden? I shall 
want it most, then, Guy, for there will be no 
one in the wide world but you. 

He. You're a little over-tired to-night, 
Sweetheart, and you’re taking a stage view of 
the situation. After the necessary business in 
the Courts, the road is clear to— 

Sue. “The holy state of matrimony!’ Ha! 
ha! ha! ; 

He. Ssh! Don’t laugh in that horrible way. 

SHE. I—I c-c-c-can’t help it! Isn’t it too 
absurd! Ah! Ha! ha! ha! Guy, stop me quick 
or I shall—t-l-laugh till we get to the Church. 

He. For goodness’ sake, stop! Don’t make 
an exhibition of yourself. What is the matter 
with you? 

SHE. N-nothing. I’m better now. 

He. That’s all right. One moment, dear. 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 89 


There’s a little wisp of hair got loose from 
behind your right ear and it’s straggling over 
your cheek. So! 

SHE. Thank’oo. I’m ’fraid my hat’s on one 
side, too. 

He. What do you wear these huge dagger 
bonnet-skewers for? They’re big enough to 
kill a man with. 

SHE. Oh! Don’t kill me, though. You're 
sticking it into my head. Let me do it. You 
men are so clumsy. 

Hr. Have you had many opportunities of 
comparing us—in this sort of work? 

SHE. Guy, what is my name? 

He. Eh! I don’t follow. 

SHE. Here’s my cardcase. Can you read? 

Hr. Yes. Well? 

SHE. Well, that answers your question. 
You know the other man’s name. Am I suffi- 
ciently humbled, or would you like to ask me 
if there is any one else? 

He. Isee now. My darling, I never meant 
that for an instant. I was only joking, There! 
Lucky there’s no one on the road. They’d be 
scandalized: 

SHE. They’ll be more scandalized before 
the end. 

He. Do-on’t! I don’t like you to talk in that 
way. 


90 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


SHE. Unreasonable man! Who asked me 
to face the situation and accept it?—Tell me, 
do I look like Mrs. Penner? Do I look like a 
naughty woman? Swear I don’t! Give me 
your word of honor, my honorable friend, that 
I’m not like Mrs. Buzgago. That’s the way 
she stands, with her hands clasped at the back 
of her head. D’you like that? 

He. Don’t be affected. 

SHE. T’mnot. I’m Mrs. Buzgago. Listen! 


Pendant une anne’ toute entiére — 
Le régiment n’a pas r’paru. 

Au Ministére de la Guerre 

On le r’porta comme perdu. 


On se rnoncait 4 r’trouver sa trace, 
Quand wn matin subitement, 

On le vit r’paraitre sur la place, 
L’Colonel toujours en avant, 


That’s the way she rolls her r’s. Am T like 
her? 

He. No, but I object when you go on like 
an actress and sing stuff of that kind. Where 
in the world did you pick up the Chanson du 
Colonel? It isn’t a drawing-room song.. It 
isn’t proper. 

SHE. Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is 
both drawing-room and proper, and in another 
month she'll shut her drawing-room to me, 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION gt 


and thank God she isn’t as improper as I am. 
Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish I was like some women 
and had no scruples about—what is it Keene 
says?—“Wearing a corpse’s hair and being 
false to the bread they eat.” 

He. {fam only a man of limited intelligence, 
and, just now, very bewildered. When you 
have quite finished flashing through all your 
moods tell me, and I'll try to understand the 
last one. 

SHE. Moods, Guy! I haven’t any. I’m six- 
teen years old, and you're just twenty, and 
you've been waiting for two hours outside the 
school in the cold. And now I’ve met you, and 
now we're walking home together. Does that 
suit you, my Imperial Majesty? 

He. No. We aren’t children. Why can’t 
you be rational? 

Sue. He asks me that when I’m going to 
commit suicide for his sake, and, and—I don’t 
want to be French and rave about my mother, 
but have I ever told you that I have a mother, 
and a brother who was my pet before I mar- 
ried? He’s married now. Can’t you imagine 
the pleasure that the news of the elopement will 
give him? Have you any people at Home, 
Guy, to be pleased with your performances? 

He. One or two. One can’t make omelets 

Kip. 6—D 


92 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


without breaking eggs. 

Sue (slowly). I don’t see the necessity—~ 

He. Hah! What do you mean? 

Sue. Shall I speak the truth? 

He. Under the circumstances, perhaps it 
would be as well. 

SHE. Guy, I’m afraid. 

He. I thought we’d settled all that. What 
oft 

SHE. Of you. 

He. Oh, damn it all! The old business! 
This is too bad! 

SHE. Of you. 

Her. And what now? 

SHE. What do you think of me. 

He. Beside the question altogether. What 
do you intend to do? 

Sue. I daren’t risk it. Pm afraid. HI 
could only cheat— 

He. A la Buegago? No, thanks. That’s 
the one point on which I have any notion of 
Honor. I won’t eat his salt and steal too. lil 
loot openly or not at all. 

Sue. I never meant anything else. 

He. Then, why in the world do you. pre- 
tend not to be willing to come? 

Sue. It’s not pretence, Guy. I om afraid. 

Her. Please explain. 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 93 


SHE. It can’t last, Guy. It can’t last. You'll 
get angry, and then you'll swear, and then 
you'll get jealous, and then you'll mistrust me 
—you do now—and you yourself will be the 
best reason for doubting. And I—what shall 
Ido? I shall be no better than Mrs. Buzgago 
found out—no better than any one. And 
youll know that. Oh, Guy, can’t you see? 

He. I can see that you are desperately un- 
reasonable, little woman. 

SHE. There! The moment I begin to ob- 
ject, you get angry. What will you do when 
I am only your property—stolen property? It 
can’t be, Guy. Itcan’t be! I thought it could, 
but it caw’t. You'll get tired of me. 

He. I tell you I shall not. Won't anything 
make you understand that? 

Sue. There, can’t you see? If you speak 
to me like that now, you'll call me horrible 
names later, if I don’t do everything as you 
like. And if you were cruel to me, Guy, where 
should I go—where should I go? I[ can’t trust 
you. Oh! I can’t trust you! 

Her. I suppose I ought to say that I can 
trust you. T’ve ample reason. 

SHE. Please don’t, dear. It hurts as much 
as if you hit me. 

He. It isn’t exactly pleasant for me. 


94 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 


SHE. I can’t help it. I wish I were dead! 
I can’t trust you, and I don’t trust myself. Oh, 
Guy, let it die away and be forgotten! 

Her. Too late now. I don’t understand you 
—I won’t—and I can’t trust myself to talk this 
evening. May I call to-morrow? 

SHE. Yes. No! Oh, give me time! The 
day after. I get into my ’rickshaw here and 
meet Him at Peliti’s. You ride. 

He. Til go on to Peliti’s too. I think I want 
a drink. My world’s knocked about my ears 
and the stars are falling. Who are those brutes 
howling in the Old Library? 

SHE. They’re rehearsing the singing-qua- 
drilles for the Fancy Ball. Can’t you hear 
Mrs. Buzgago’s voice? She has a solo. It’s 
quite a new idea. Listen. 

Mrs. Buzcaco. (In the Old Library, con 
molt. exp.). 


See saw! Margery Daw! 

Sold her bed to lie upon straw. 
Wasn’t she a silly slut 

(Lo sell her bed and lie upon dirt? 


Captain Congleton, I’m going to alter that 
to “flirt.” It sounds better. 

He. No, Pve changed my mind about the 
drink. Good-night, little lady. I shall see you 
to-morrow? | 


THE HILL OF ILLUSION 95 


SHE. Ye—es. Good-night, Guy. Don’t be 
angry with me. 

He. Angry! You know I trust you abso- 
lutely. Good-night and—God bless you! 

(Three seconds later. Alone.) Hmm! I’d 
give something to discover whether there’s an- 
other man at the back of all this. 


wkby AY ahi 
{ l iy 


t ; 
yt : 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


Est fuga, volvitur rota, 
On we drift; where looms the dim port? 
One Two Three Four Five contribute their quota: 
Something is gained if one caught but the import, 
Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. 
—Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. 


RESSED! Don’t tell me that woman 
ever dressed in her life. She stood 
in the middle of the rootn while her ayah—no, 
her husband—it must have been a man—threw 
her clothes at her. She then did her hair with 
her fingers, and rubbed her bonnet in the flue 
under the bed. I know she did, as well as if I 
had assisted at the orgie. Who is she?” said 
Mrs. Hauksbee. 

“Don’t!” said Mrs. Mallowe, feebly. “You 
make my head ache. I’m miserable to-day. 
Stay me with fondants, comfort me with choc- 
olates, for I am— Did you bring anything 
from Peliti’s?” 

“Questions to begin with. You shall have 
the sweets when you have answered them. 
Who and what is the creature? There were at 
least half a dozen men round her, and she ap- 
peared to be going to sleep in their midst.” 

“Delville,’ said Mrs. Mallowe, “ ‘Shady’ 
Delville, to distinguish her from Mrs. Jim of 


99 


roo) =30dsA.: SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


that ilk. She dances as untidily as she dresses, 
I believe, and her husband is somewhere in 
Madras. Go and call, if you are so interested.” 

“What have I to do with Shigramitish 
women? She merely caught my attention for 
a minute, and I wondered at the attraction 
that a dowd has for a certain type of man. I 
expected to see her walk out of her clothes— 
until I looked at her eyes.’ 

“Hooks and eyes, surely,” drawled Mrs. — 
Mallowe. 

“Don’t be clever, Polly. You make my head 
ache. And round this hayrick stood a crowd 
of men—a positive crowd!” 

“Perhaps they also expected’”— 

“Polly, don’t be Rabelaisian!” 

Mrs. Mallowe curled herself up comfortably 
on the sofa, and turned her attention to the 
sweets. She and Mrs. Hauksbee shared the 
same house at Simla; and these things befell 
two seasons after the matter of Otis Yeere, 
which has been already recorded. 

Mrs. Hauksbee stepped into the veranda and 
looked down upon the Mall, her forehead 
puckered with thought. 

“Hah! said Mrs. Hauksbee, shortly. “In- 
deed!” 

“What is it?” said Mrs. Mallowe, sleepily. 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN _ tor 


“That dowd and The Dancing Master—to 
whom I object.” 

“Why to The Dancing Master? He is a 
middle-aged gentleman, of reprobate and ro- 
mantic tendencies, and tries to be a friend of 
mine.” 

“Then make up your mind to lose him. 
Dowds cling by nature, and I should imagine 
that this animal—how terrible her bonnet 
looks from above !—is specially clingsome.” 

“She is welcome to The Dancing Master so 
far as I am concerned. I never could take an 
interest in a monotonous liar. The frustrated 
aim of his life is to persuade people that he is 
a bachelor.” 

“O-oh! I think I’ve met that sort of man 
before. And isn’t he?” 

“No. He confided that to me a few days 
ago. Ugh! Some men ought to be killed.” 

“What happened then?” 

“Fe posed as the horror of horrors—a mis- 
understood man. Heaven knows the femme 
incomprise is sad enough and bad enough— 
but the other thing!” 

“And so fat too! J should have laughed in 
his face. Men seldom confide in me. How is 
it they come to you?” 

“For the sake of impressing me with their 


102 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


careers in the past. Protect me from men 
with confidences!’’ 

“And yet you encourage them!” 

“What can I do? They talk, I listen, and 
they vow that I am sympathetic. I know I al- 
ways profess astonishment even when the plot 
is—of the most old possible.” 

“Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if 
they are once allowed to talk, whereas 
women’s confidences are full of reservations 
and fibs, except”— 

“When they go mad and babble of the Un- 
utterabilities after a week’s acquaintance. 
Really, if you come to consider, we know a 
great deal more of men than of our own sex.” 

“And the extraordinary thing is that men 
will never believe it. They say we are trying 
to hide something.” 

“They are generally doing that on their own 
account. Alas! These chocolates pall upon 
me, and I haven’t eaten more than a dozen. 
I think I shall go to sleep.” 

“Then you'll get fat, dear. If you took 
more exercise and a more intelligent interest 
in your neighbors you would”— 

“Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. 
You're a darling in many ways and I like you 
=—you are not a woman’s woman—but why do 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 103 


you trouble yourself about mere human 
beings ?”’ 

“Because in the absence of angels, who I am 
sure would be horribly dull, men and women 
are the most fascinating things in the whole 
wide world, lazy one. I am interested in The 
Dowd—I am interested in The Dancing Mas- 
ter—I am interested in the Hawley Boy—and 
I am interested in you.” 

“Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He 
is your property.” 

“Ves and in his own guileless speech, I’m 
making a good thing out of him. When he is 
slightly more reformed, and has passed his 
Higher Standard, or whatever the authorities 
think fit to exact from him, I shall select a 
pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and” — 
here she waved her hands airily—‘ ‘whom 
Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together let no 
man put asunder.’ That’s all.” 

“And when you have yoked May Holt with 
the most notorious detrimental in Simla, and 
earned the undying hatred of Mamma Holt, 
what will you do with me, Dispenser of the 
Destinies of the Universe?” 

Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in 
front of the fire, and, chin in hand, gazed long 
and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe. 


104. A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“T do not know,” she said, shaking her 
head, “what I shall do with you, dear. It’s 
obviously impossible to marry you to some one 
else—your husband would object and the ex- 
periment might not be successful after all. I 
think I shall begin by preventing you from— 
what is it?—‘sleeping on ale-house benches 
and snoring in the sun.’ ” 

“Don’t! I don’t like your quotations. They 
are so rude. Go to the Library and bring me 
new books.” 

“While you sleep? No! If you don’t come 
with me, I shall spread your newest frock on 
my “rickshaw-bow, and when any one asks me 
what I am doing, I shall say that I am going 
to Phelps’s to get it let out. I shall take care 
that Mrs. McNamara sees me. Put your 
things on, there’s a good girl.” 

Mrs. Mallowe groaned and obeyed, and the 
two went off to the Library, where they found 
Mrs. Delville and the man who went by the 
nickname of The Dancing Master. By that 
time Mrs. Mallowe was awake and eloquent. 

“That is the Creature!” said Mrs. Hauks- 
bee, with the air of one pointing out a slug in 
the road. 

“No,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “The man is 
the Creature. Ugh! Good-evening, Mr. Bent. 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 105 


Y thought you were coming to tea this even- 
ing.” 

“Surely it was for to-morrow, was it not?” 
answered The Dancing Master. “I under- 
coe eS oe tanta ei SSO 
sorry . . . How very unfortunate!” . . 


But Mrs. Mallowe had passed on. 

“For the practiced equivocator you said he 
was,” murmured Mrs. Hauksbee, “he strikes 
me as a failure. Now wherefore should he 
have preferred a walk with The Dowd to tea 
with us? Elective affinities, I suppose—both 
grubby. Polly, I’d never forgive that woman 
as long as the world rolls.” 

“I forgive every woman everything,” said 
Mrs. Mallowe. ‘He will be sufficient punish- 
ment for her. What a common voice she 
has!” 

Mrs. Delville’s voice was not pretty, her car- 
triage was even less lovely, and her raiment 
was strikingly neglected. All these things 
Mrs. Mallowe noticed over the top of a maga- 
zine. 

“Now what is there in her?’ said Mrs. 
Hauksbee. “Do you see what I meant about 
the clothes falling off? If I were a man I 
would perish sooner than be seen with that 


106 ©60©.A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


rag-bag. And yet, she has good eyes, but— 
Oh!” 

What is it?” 

“She doesn’t know how to use them! On 
my Honor, she does not. Look! Oh, look! 
Untidiness I can endure, but ignorance never! 
The woman’s a fool.” 
whish! (She hear vous. 

“All the women in Simla are fools. She'll 
think I mean some one else. Now she’s going 
out. What a thoroughly objectionable couple 
she and The Dancing Master make! Which 


reminds me. Do you suppose they'll ever 


dance together ?” 

“Wait and see. I don’t envy her the con- 
versation of The Dancing Master—loathly 
man! His wife ought to be up here before 
long.” 

“Do you know anything about him?’ 

“Only what he told me. It may be all a fic- 


tion. He married a girl bred in the country, 


I think, and, being an honorable, chivalrous 
soul, told me that he repented his bargain and 
sent her to her mother as often as possible— 
a person who has lived in the Doon since the 
memory of man and goes to Mussoorie when 
other people go Home. The wife is with her 
at present. So he says.” 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN _— 107 


\ “Babies ?” : 

“One only, but he talks of his wife in a re- 
volting way. I hated him for it. He thought 
he was being epigrammatic and brilliant.” 

“That is a vice peculiar to men. I dislike 
him because he is generally in the wake of 
some girl, disappointing the Eligibles. He 
will persecute May Holt no more, unless I am 
much mistaken.” 

“No. I think Mrs. Delville may vccupy his 
attention for a while.” 

“Do you suppose she knows that he is the 
head of a family?” 

“Not from his lips. He swore me to eter- 
nal secrecy. Wherefore I tell you. Don't you 
know that type of man?” | 

“Not intimately, thank goodness! As a 
general rule, when a man begins to abuse his 
wife to me, I find that the Lord gives me 
wherewith to answer him according to his 
folly ; and we part with a coolness between us. 
I laugh.” 

“T’m different. I’ve no sense of humor.” | 

“Cultivate it, then. It has been my main- 
stay for more years than I care to think about. 
A well-educated sense of Humor will save a 
woman when Religion, Training, and Home 
influences fail; and we may all need salvation 
sometimes.” 


108 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“Do you suppose that the Delville woman 
has humor?” 

“Her dress bewrays her. How can a Thing 
who wears her supplémenit under her left arm 
have any notion of the fitness of things—much 
less their folly? If she discards The Dancing 
Master after having once seen him dance, I 
may respect her. Otherwise’— 

“But are we not both assuming a great deal 
too much, dear? You saw the woman at Pe- 
liti’s—half an hour later you saw her walking 
with The Dancing Master—an hour later you 
met her here at the Library.” 

“Still with The Dancing Master, remem- 
ber.”’ 

“Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, 
but why on the strength of that should you 
imagine’— 

“T imagine nothing. I have no imagination. 
I am only convinced that The Dancing Master 
is attracted to The Dowd because he is objec- 
tionable in every way and she in every other. 
If I know the man as you have described him, 
he holds his wife in slavery at present.” 

’She’s twenty years younger than he.” 

“Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he 
has posed and swaggered and lied—he has a 
mouth under that ragged moustache simply 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 109 


made for lies—he will be rewarded according 
to his merits.” 

“TI wonder what those really are,” said Mrs. 
Mallowe. 

But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the 
shelf of the new books, was humming softly: 
“What shall he have who killed the Deer!” 
She was a lady of unfettered speech. 

One month later, she announced her inten- 
tion of calling upon Mrs. Delville. Both Mrs. 
Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in morning 
wrappers, and there was a great peace in the 
land. 

“T should go as I was,” said Mrs. Mallowe. 
“Tt would be a delicate compliment to her 
style.” 

Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass. 

“Assuming for a moment that she ever 
darkened these doors, I should put on this 
robe, after all the others, to show her what a 
morning wrapper ought to be. It might en- 
lighten her. As it is, I shall go in the dove-col- 
ored sweet emblem of youth and innocence 
—and shall put on my new gloves.” 

“Tf you really are going, dirty tan would be 
too good; and you know that dove-color spots 
with the rain.” 

“T care not. I may make her envious. At 


110 ‘A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


least I shall try, though one cannot expect very 
much from such a woman, who puts a lace 
tucker into her habit.” 

“Just Heavens! When did she do that?” 

“Yesterday—riding with The Dancing Mas- 
ter. I met them at the back of Jakko, and 
the rain had made the lace lie down. To com- 
plete the effect, she was wearing an unclean 
terat with the elastic under her chin. I felt 
almost too well content to take the trouble to 
despise her.” 

“The Hawley Boy was riding with you. 
What did he think?” 

“Does a boy ever notice these things? 
Should I like him if he did? He stared in 
the rudest way, and just when I thought he 
had seen the elastic, he said, ‘There’s some- 
thing very taking about that face.’ I rebuked 
him on the spot. I don’t approve of boys 
being taken by faces.” 

“Other than your own. I shouldn’t be in 
the least surprised if the Hawley Boy immedi- 
ately went to call.” 

“Y forbade him. Let her be satisfied with 
The Dancing Master, and his wife when she 
comes up. I’m rather curious to see Mrs. 
Bent and the Delville woman together.”’ 

Mrs. Hauksbee. departed and, at the end of 
an hour, returned slightly flushed. 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN  1Yr 


“There is no limit to the treachery of youth! 
Y ordered the Hawley Boy, as he valued my 
patronage, not to call. The first person I 
stumble over—literally stumble over—in her 
poky, dark, little drawing-room is, of course, 
the Hawley Boy. She kept us waiting ten 
minutes, and then emerged as though she had 
been tipped out of the dirty-clothes basket. 
You know my way, dear, when I am at all put 
out. I was Superior, crrrrushingly Superior! 
‘Lifted my eyes to Heaven, and had heard of 
nothing—dropped my eyes on the carpet and 
‘really didn’t know’—played with my card- 
case and ‘supposed so.” The Hawley Boy gig- 
gled like a girl, and I had to freeze him with 
scowls between the sentences.” 

“And she?” 

“She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, 
and managed to convey the impression that 
she was suffering from stomach-ache, at the 
very least. It was all I could do not to ask 
after her symptoms. When I rose she grunted 
just like a buffalo in the water—too lazy to 
move.”’ 

“Are you certain?’ — 

“Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer lazi- 
ness, nothing else—or her garments were only 
constructed for sitting down in. I stayed for 


II2 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


a quarter of an hour trying to penetrate the 
gloom, to guess what her surroundings were 
like, while she stuck out her tongue.” 

“Lu—cy!” 

“Well—Ill withdraw the tongue, though 
I’m sure if she didn’t do it when I was in the 
room, she did the minute 1 was outside. At 
any rate, she lay in a lump and grunted. Ask 
the Hawley Boy, dear. I believe the grunts 
were meant for sentences, but she spoke so in- 
distinctly that I can’t swear to it.” 

“You are incorrigible, simply.” 

“Tam not! Treat me civilly, give me peace 
with honor, don’t put the only available seat 
facing the window, and a child may eat jam in 
my lap before Church. But I resent being 
erunted at. Wouldn’t you? Do you suppose 
that she communicates her views on life and 
love to The Dancing Master in a set of modu- 
lated ‘Grmphs’ ?” 

“You attach too much importance to The 
Dancing Master.” 

“He came as we went, and The Dowd grew 
almost cordial at the sight of him. He smiled 
greasily, and moved about that darkened dog- 
kennel in a suspiciously familiar way.” 

“Don’t be uncharitable. Any sin but that 
Vil forgive.” 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 113 


“Listen to the voice of History. I am only 
describing what I saw. He entered, the heap 
on the sofa revived slightly, and the Hawley 
Boy and I came away together. He is disillu- 
sioned, but I felt it my duty to lecture him 
severely for going there. And that’s all.” 

“Now for Pity’s sake leave the wretched 
creature and The Dancing Master alone. 
They never did you any harm.” 

“No harm? To dress as an example and a 
stumbling-block for half Simla, and then to 
find this Person who is dressed by the hand of 
God—not that I wish to disparage Him for a 
moment, but you know the tikka dhurzie way 
He attires those lilies of the field—this Person 
draws the eyes of men—and some of them 
nice men! It’s almost enough to make one 
discard clothing. I told the Hawley Boy so.” 

“And what did that sweet youth do?” 

“Turned shell-pink and looked across. the 
far blue hills like a distressed cherub. Am I 
talking wildly, Polly? Let me say my say, 
and I shall be calm. Otherwise I may go 
abroad and disturb Simla with a few original 
reflections. Excepting always your own sweet 
self, there isn’t a single woman in the land who 
understands me when I am—what’s the 
word?” 


114. A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“Téte-félée,’ suggested Mrs. Mallowe. 

“Exactly! And now let us have tiffin. The 
demands of Society are exhausting, and as 
Mrs. Delville says’— Here Mrs. Hauksbee, 
to the horror of the khitmatgars, lapsed into a 
series of grunts, while Mrs. Mallowe stared in 
lazy surprise. 

“ “God gie us a gude conceit of oorselves.’ ” 
said Mrs. Hauksbee, piously, returning to her 
natural speech. ‘Now, in any other woman 
that would have been vulgar. I am consumed 
with curiosity to see Mrs. Bent. I expect com- 
plications.” 

“Woman of one idea,” said Mrs. Mallowe, 
shortly; “all complications are as old as the 
hills!’ I have lived through or near all—all— 
ALL!” 

“And yet do not understand that men and 
women never behave twice alike. I am old 
who was young—if ever I put my head in your 
lap, you dear, big sceptic, you will learn that 
my parting is gauze—but never, no never, 
have I lost my interest in men and women. 
Polly, I shall see this business out to the bit- 
ter end: 

“T am going to sleep,’ said Mrs. Mallowe, 
calmly. “I never interfere with men or 
women unless I am compelled,” and she re- 
tired with dignity to her own room. 


bd 


. 
‘ 
J 
; 
i 
h 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN IIS 


Mrs. Hauksbee’s curiosity was not long left 
ungratified, for Mrs. Bent came up to Simla a’ 
few days after the conversation faithfully re- 
ported above, and pervaded the Mall by her 
husband’s side. 

“Behold!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, thought- 
fully rubbing her nose. ‘That is the last link 
of the chain, if we omit the husband of the 
Delville, whoever he may be. Let me consider. 
The Bents and the Delvilles inhabit the same 
hotel; and the Delville is detested by the 
Waddy—do you know the Waddy ?—who is 
almost as big a dowd. The Waddy also abom- 
inates the male Bent, for which, if her other 
sins do not weigh too heavily, she will eventu- 
ally go to Heaven.” 

“Don’t be irreverent,” said Mrs. Mallowe, 
“T like Mrs. Bent’s face.” 

“I am discussing the Waddy,” returned 
Mrs. Hauksbee, loftily. “The Waddy will 
take the female Bent apart, after having bor- 
rowed—yes !—everything that she can, from 
hairpins to babies’ bottles. Such, my dear, is 
life in a hotel. The Waddy will tell the fe- 
male Bent facts and fictions about The Danc- 
ing Master and The Dowd.” 

“Lucy, I should like you better if you were 
not always looking into people’s back-bed- 


' rooms.”’ 


116 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“Anybody can look into their front draw- 
ing-rooms; and remember whatever I do, and 
wherever I look, I never talk—as the Waddy 
will. Let us hope that The Dancing Master’s 
greasy smile and manner of the pedagogue 
will soften the heart of that cow, his wife. If 
mouths speak truth, I should think that little 
Mrs. Bent could get very angry on occasion.” 

“But what reason has she for being angry?” 

“What reason! The Dancing Master in 
himself is a reason. How does it go? ‘If in 
his life some trivial errors fall, Look in his 
face and you'll believe them all.’ 1 am pre- 
pared to credit any evil of The Dancing Mas- 
ter, because I hate him so. And The Dowd is 
so disgustingly badly dressed’”— 

“That she, too, is capable of every iniquity ? 
I always prefer to believe the best of every- 
body. It saves so much trouble.” 

“Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. 
It saves useless expenditure of sympathy. And 
you may be quite certain that the Waddy be- 
lieves with me.” 

Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer. 

The conversation was holden after dinner 
while Mrs. Hauksbee was dressing for a dance. 

“T am too tired to go,” pleaded Mrs. Mal- 
lowe, and Mrs. Hauksbee left her in peace till 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 119 


two in the morning, when she was aware of 
emphatic knocking at her door. 

“Don’t be very angry, dear,” said Mrs. 
Hauksbee. “My idiot of an ayah has gone 
home, and, as I hope to sleep to-night, there 
isn’t a soul in the place to unlace me.” 

“Oh, this is too bad!” said Mrs. Mallowe, 
sulkily. 

“°’Can’t help it. I’m a lone, lorn grass- 
widow, dear, but I will not sleep in my stays. 

And such news, too! Oh, do unlace me, 
there’s a darling! The Dowd—The Dancing 
Master—lI and the Hawley Boy— You know 
the North veranda?” 

“How can I do anything if you spin round 
like this?” protested Mrs. Mallowe, fumbling 
with the knot of the laces. 

“Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without 
the aid of your eyes. Do you know you've 
lovely eyes, dear? Well, to begin with, I took 
the Hawley Boy to a kala juggah.” 

“Did he want much taking ?” 

“Lots! There was an arrangement of loose- 
boxes in kanats, and she was in the next one 
talking to him.” 

“Which? How? Explain.” 

“You know what I mean—The Dowd and 
The Dancing Master. We could hear every 


118 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


word, and we listened shamelessly—’specially 
the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that 
woman!” 

“This is interesting. There! Now turn 
round. What happened?” 

“One moment. Ah—h! Blessed relief. 
I’ve been looking forward to taking them off 
for the last half-hour—which is ominous at 
my time of life. But, as I was saying, we lis- 
tened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than 
ever. She drops her final g’s like a barmaid or 
a blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. ‘Look he-ere, 
you're gettin’ too fond o’ me,’ she said, and 
The Dancing Master owned it was so in lan- 
guage that nearly made me ill. The Dowd 
reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, 
‘Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such 
an aw-ful liar? I nearly exploded while The 
Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems 
that he never told her he was a married man.” 

“T said he wouldn't.” 

“And she had taken this to heart, on per- 
sonal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along 
for four or five minutes, reproaching him with 
his perfidy, and grew quite motherly. ‘Now 
you've got a nice little wife of your own—you 
have,’ she said. ‘She’s ten times too good for 
a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 119 


never told me a word about her, and I’ve been 
thinkin’ about it a good deal, and I think 
you're a liar.’ Wasn’t that delicious? The 
Dancing Master maundered and raved till the 
Hawley Boy suggested that he should burst in 
and beat him. His voice runs up into an im- 
passioned squeak when he is afraid. The 
Dowd must be an extraordinary woman. She 
explained that had he been a bachelor she 
might not have objected to his devotion; but 
since he was a married man and the father of 
a very nice baby, she considered him a hypo- 
crite, and this she repeated twice. She wound 
up her drawl with: ‘An’ I’m tellin’ you this be- 
cause your wife is angry with me, an’ I hate 
quarrelin’ with any other woman, an’ I like 
your wife. You know how you have behaved 
for the last six weeks. You shouldn’t have 
done it, indeed you shouldn't. You're too old 
an’ too fat.” Can’t you imagine how The 
Dancing Master would wince at that! ‘Now 
go away, she said. ‘I don’t want to tell you 
what I think of you, because I think you are 
not nice. I’ll stay he-ere till the next dance be- 
gins.’ Did you think that the creature had so 
much in her?” 

“T never studied her as closely as you did, 
It sounds unnatural. What happened?” 


320 ‘A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“The Dancing Master attempted blandish- 
ment, reproof, jocularity, and the style of the 
Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch 
the Hawley Boy to make him keep quiet. She 
grunted at the end of each sentence and, in 
the end he went away swearing to himself, 
quite like a man in a novel. He looked more 
objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love 
that woman—in spite of her clothes. And 
now I’m going to bed. What do you think of 
itt: 

“I sha’n’t begin to think till the morning,” 
said Mrs. Mallowe, yawning. “Perhaps she 
spoke the truth. They do fly into it by acci- 
dent sometimes.” 

Mrs. Hauksbee’s account of her eavesdrop- 
ping was an ornate one but truthful in the 
main. For reasons best known to herself, 
Mrs. “Shady” Delville had turned upon Mr. 
Bent and rent him limb from limb, casting 
him away limp and disconcerted ere she with- 
drew the light of her eyes from him perma- 
nently. Being a man of resource, and anything 
but pleased in that he had been called both old 
and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that 
he had, during her absence in the Doon, been 
the victim of unceasing persecution at the 
hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 121 


so often and with such eloquence that he ended 
in believing it, while his wife marvelled at the 
manners and customs of ‘some women.” 
When the situation showed signs of languish- 
ing, Mrs. Waddy was always on hand to wake 
the smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. 
Bent’s bosom and to contribute generally to 
the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr. 
Bent’s life was not a happy one, for if Mrs. 
Waddy’s story were true, he was, argued his 
wife, untrustworthy to the last degree. If his 
own statement was true, his charms of manner 
and conversation were so great that he needed 
constant surveillance. And he received it till he 
repented genuinely of his marriage and neg- 
lected his personal appearance. Mrs. Delville 
alone in the hotel was unchanged. She re- 
moved her chair some six paces toward the 
head of the table, and occasionally in the twi- 
light ventured on timid overtures of friendship 
to Mrs. Bent, which were repulsed. 

“She does it for my sake,” hinted the virtu- 
ous Bent. 

“A dangerous and designing woman,” 
purred Mrs. Waddy. 

Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was 
full! 

% * e *¥ id & 


T22 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria?” 

“Of nothing in the world except smallpox. 
Diphtheria kills, but it doesn’t disfigure. Why 
do you ask?” 

“Because the Bent baby has got it, and the 
whole hotel is upside down in consequence. 
The Waddy has “set her five young on the 
rail’ and fled. The Dancing Master fears for 
his precious throat, and that miserable little 
woman, his wife, has no notion of what ought 
to be done. She wanted to put it into a mus- 
tard bath—for croup!” 

“Where did you learn all this?” 

“Just now, on the Mall. Dr. Howlen told 
me. The Manager of the hotel is abusing the 
Bents, and the Bents are abusing the Manager. 
They are a feckless couple.” 

“Well. What’s on your mind?” 

“This; and I know it’s a grave thing to ask. 
Would you seriously object to my bringing the 
child over here, with its mother ?” 

“On the most strict understanding that we 
see nothing of The Dancing Master.” 

“He will be only too glad to stay away. 
Polly, you’re an angel. The woman really is 
at her wits’ end.” 

“And you know nothing about her, care- 
less, and would hold her up to public scorn if 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN _ 123 


it gave you a minute’s amusement. Therefore 
you risk your life for the sake of her brat. No, 
Loo, J’m not the angel. I shall keep to my 
rooms and avoid her. But do as you please— 
only tell me why you do it.” 

Mrs. Hauksbee’s eyes softened; she looked 
out of the window and back into Mrs. Mal- 
lowe’s face. 

“T don’t know,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, sim- 
ply. 

“You dear!’ 

“Polly!—and for aught you knew you 
might have taken my fringe off. Never do 
that again without warning. Now we'll get 
the rooms ready. I don’t suppose I shall be al- 
lowed to circulate in society for a month.” 

“And I also. Thank goodness I shall at 
last get all the sleep I want.” 

Much to Mrs. Bent’s surprise she and the 
baby were brought over to the house almost 
before she knew where she was. Bent was 
devoutly and undisguisedly thankful, for he 
was afraid of the infection, and also hoped 
that a few weeks in the hotel alone with Mrs. 
Delville might lead to explanations. Mrs. 
Bent had thrown her jealousy to the winds in 
her fear for her child’s life. 

“We can give you good milk,” said Mrs. 
Kip. 6—E 


124 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


Hauksbee to her, “and our house is much 
nearer to the Doctor’s than the hotel, and you 
won't feel as though you were living in a hos- 
tile camp. Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy? 
she seemed to be a particular friend of yours.” 

“They’ve all left me,” said Mrs. Bent, bit- 
terly. “Mrs. Waddy went first. She said I 
ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing 
diseases there, and I am sure it wasn’t my fault 
that little Dora”— 

“How nice!” cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. “The 
Waddy is an infectious disease herself —‘more 
quickly caught than the plague and the taker 
runs presently mad.’ I lived next door to her 
at the Elysium, three years ago. Now see, 
you won’t give us the least trouble, and I’ve 
ornamented all the house with sheets soaked in 
carbolic. It smells comforting, doesn’t it? 
Remember I’m always in call, and my ayah’s 
at your service when yours goes to her meals 
and—and—if you cry I'll never forgive you.” 

Dora Bent occupied her mother’s unprofit- 
able attention through the day and the night. 
The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four 
hours, and the house reeked with the smell of 
the Condy’s Fluid, chlorine-water, and car- 
bolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her 
own rooms—she considered that she had made 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 125 


sufficient concessions in the cause of humanity 
—and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by 
the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the 
half-distraught mother. 

“I know nothing of illness,’ said Mrs. 
Hauksbee to the Doctor. “Only tell me what 
to do, and I'll do it.” 

“Keep that crazy woman from kissing the 
child, and let her have as little to do with the 
nursing as you possibly can,” said the Doctor; 
“I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I 
honestly believe she’d die of anxiety. She is 
less than no good, and I depend on you and 
the ayahs, remember.” 

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, 
though it painted olive hollows under her eyes 
and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. 
Bent clung to her with more than childlike 
faith. 

“T know you'll make Dora well, won't 
you?” she said at least twenty times a day; 
and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee an- 
swered valiantly, “Of course I will.” 

But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor 
seemed to be always in the house. 

“There’s some danger of the thing taking a 
bad turn,” he said; “I'll come over between 
three and four in the morning to-morrow.” 


126 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“Good gracious!’ said Mrs. Hauksbee. — 
“He never told me what the turn would be! 
My education has been horribly neglected; 
and I have only this foolish mother-woman to 
fall back upon.” 

The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. 
Hauksbee dozed in a chair by the fire. There 
was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and she 
dreamed of it till she was aware of Mrs. 
Bent’s anxious eyes staring into her own. 

“Wake up! Wake up! Do something!’ 
cried Mrs. Bent, piteously. “Dora’s choking 
to death! Do you mean to let her die?” 

Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent 
over the bed. The child was fighting for 
breath, while the mother wrung her hands de- 
spairing. 

“Oh, what can I do? What can you do? 
She won’t stay still! I can’t hold her. Why 
didn’t the Doctor say this was coming?” 
screamed Mrs. Bent. “Won't you help me? 
She’s dying!” 

“T—I’ve never seen a child die before!” 
stammered Mrs. Hauksbee, feebly, and then— 
let none blame her weakness after the strain of 
long watching—she broke down, and covered 
her face with her hands. The ayahs on the 
threshold snored peacefully. 


‘A SECOND-RATE WOMAN = 127 


There was a rattle of ’rickshaw wheels be- 
low, the clash of an opening door, a heavy step 
on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered to find 
Mrs. Bent screaming for the Doctor as she 
ran round the room. Mrs. Hauksbee, her 
hands to her ears, and her face buried in the 
chintz of a chair, was quivering with pain at 
each cry from the bed, and murmuring, 
“Thank God, I never bore a child! Oh, thank 
God, I never bore a child!” 

Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an in- 
stant, took Mrs. Bent by the shoulders, and 
said, quietly, “Get me some caustic. Be 
quick.” 

_ The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Del- 
ville had thrown herself down by the side of 
the child and was opening its mouth. 

“Oh, you're killing her!’ cried Mrs. Bent. 
*“Where’s the Doctor? Leave her alone!” 

Mrs, Delville made no reply for a minute, 

but busied herself with the child. 
_ “Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind 
my shoulder. W4ull you do as you are told? 
The acid-bottle, if you don’t know what I 
mean,” she said. 

A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the 
child. Mrs. Hauksbee, her face still hidden, 
sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs stag- 


128 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


gered sleepily into the room, yawning: “Doc- 
tor Sahib come.” 

Mrs. Delville turned her head. 

“You're only just in time,” she said. “It 
was chokin’ her when I came an’ I’ve burned 
ate" 

“There was no sign of the membrane get- 
ting to the air-passages after the last steaming. 
It was the general weakness I feared,” said 
the Doctor half to himself, and he whispered 
as he looked, ““You’ve done what I should have 
been afraid to do without consultation.” 

“She was dyin’,” said Mrs. Delville, under 
her breath. “Can you do anythin’? What a 
mercy it was I went to the dance!” 

Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head. 

“Ts it all over?” she gasped. “I’m useless 
—I’m worse than useless! What are you do- 
ing here?’ 

She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, 
realizing for the first time who was the God- 
dess from the Machine, stared also. 

Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, put- 
ting on a dirty long glove and petit a 
crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress. 

“T was at the dance, an’ the Doctor was 
tellin’ me about your baby bein’ so ill. So TI 
came away early, an’ your door was open, an’ 


" 
4 
g 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 129 


I—I—lost my boy this way six months ago, | 
an’ I’ve been tryin’ to forget it ever since, an’ 
I—I—I am very sorry for intrudin’ an’ any- 
thin’ that has happened.” 

Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor’s eye 
with a lamp as he stooped over Dora. 

“Take it away,” said the Doctor. “I think 
the child will do, thanks to you, Mrs. Delville. 
I should have come too late, but, I assure you” 
—he was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville 
—T had not the faintest reason to expect this. 
The membrane must have grown like a mush- 
room. Will one of you help me, please?’ 

He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. 
Hauksbee had thrown herself into Mrs. Del- 
ville’s arms, where she was weeping bitterly, 
and Mrs. Bent was unpicturesquely mixed up 
with both, while from the tangle came the 
sound of many sobs and much promiscuous 
kissing. 

“Good gracious! I’ve spoilt all your beau- 
tiful roses!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, lifting her 
head from the lump of crushed gum and calico 
atrocities on Mrs. Delville’s shoulder and hur- 
rying to the Doctor. 

Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and 
slouched out of the room, mopping her eyes 
with the glove that she had not put on. 


130 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 


“I always said she was more than a 
woman,’ sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee, hysterically, 
“and that proves it!” 

* 2 * 2 * x 

Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had 
returned to the hotel. Mrs. Hauksbee had 
come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had 
ceased to reproach herself for her collapse in 
an hour of need, and was even beginning to 
direct the affairs of the world as before. 

“So nobody died, and everything went off 
as it should, and I kissed The Dowd, Polly. I 
feel so old. Does it show in my face?” | 

“Kisses don’t as a rule, do they? Of course 
you know what the result of The Dowd’s 
providential arrival has been.” 3 

“They ought to build her a statue—only no 
sculptor dare copy those skirts.” 

“Ah!” said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. “She 
has found another reward. The Dancing 
Master has been smirking through Simla, giv- 
ing every one to understand that she came be- 
cause of her undying love for him—for him— 
to save /us child, and all Simla naturally be- 
lieves this.” 

“But Mrs. Bent”— 

“Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one 
else. She won’t speak to The Dowd now. 
Isn’t The Dancing Master an angel?” 


A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 1238 


Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged 
till bedtime. The doors of the two rooms 
stood open. 

“Polly,” said a voice from the darkness, 
“what did that American-heiress-globe-trotter 
girl say last season when she was tipped out of 
her *rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd 
adjective that made the man who picked her 
up explode.” 

“*Paltry,’’’ said Mrs. Mallowe. “Through 
her nose—like this—‘Ha-ow pahltry! ” 

“Exactly,” said the voice. “Ha-ow pahltry 
it all is!’ | 

“Which ?” 

“Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. 
Bent and The Dancing Master, I whooping in 
a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the 
clouds. I wonder what the motive was—aill 
the motives.” 

“TJm ide 

“What do you think?” 

“Don’t ask me. Go to sleep.” 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 


Not only to enforce by command but to en- 
courage by example the energetic discharge of duty and 
the steady endurance of the difficulties and privations 
inseparable from Military Service—Bengal Army Reg- 
ulations. 


1 Wamrotd made Bobby Wick pass an examin- 
ation at Sandhurst. He was a gentleman 
before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress 
announced that “Gentleman-Cadet Robert 
Hanna Wick” was posted as Second Lieuten- 
ant to the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Krab 
Bokhar, he became an officer and a gentleman, 
which is an enviable thing; and there.was joy 
in the house of Wick where Mamma Wick and 
all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and 
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his 
achievernents. 

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his 
day, holding authority over three millions of 


-men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building 


great works for the good of the land, and do- 
ing his best to make two blades of grass grow, 


¥326 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


where there was but one before. Of course, 
nobody knew anything about this in the little 
English village where he was just “old Mr. 
Wick’ and had forgotten that he was a Com- 
panion of the Order of the Star of India. 

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: 
“Well done, my boy!” 

There followed, while the uniform was 
being prepared, an interval of pure delight, 
during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a 
“man” at the women-swamped tennis-parties 
and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare say, 
had his joining-time been extended, would 
have fallen in love with several girls at once. 
Little country villages at Home are very full 
of nice girls, because all the young men come 
out to India to make their fortunes. 

“India,” said Papa Wick, “is the place. I’ve 
had thirty years of it and, begad, I’d like to 
go back again. When you join the Tail 
Twisters you'll be among friends, if every one 
hasn’t forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana, and 
a lot of people will be kind to you for our 
sakes. The mother will tell you more about 
outfit than I can, but remember this: Sticke 
to your Regiment, Bobby—stick to your Regi- 
ment. You'll see men all round you going 
into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible 


"i : 
TT an eee ee 


\ ONLY A SUBALTERN 137 
gort of duty but regimental, and you may be 
tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you 
keep within your allowance, and I haven't 
stinted you there, stick to the Line, the whole 
Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful 
how you back another young fool’s bill, and if 
you fall in love with a woman twenty years 
older than yourself, don’t tell me about it, 
that’s all.” 

With these counsels, and many others 
equally valuable, did Papa Wick fortify Bobby 
ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when 
the Officers’ Quarters held more inmates than 
were provided for by the Regulations, and the 
liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts 
for India, and the battle raged from the Dock- 
yard Gates even to the slums of Longport, 
while the Drabs of Fratton came down and 
scratched the faces of the Queen’s Officers. 

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his 
freckled nose, a sick and shaky detachment to 
manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty 
scornful females to attend to, had no time to 
feel homesick till the Malabar reached mid- 
Channel, when he doubled his emotions with 
a little guard-visiting and a great many other 
matters. 

The Tail Twisters were a most particular 


138 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


Regiment. Those who knew them least said 
that they were eaten up with “side.” But 
their reserve and their internal arrangements 
generally were merely protective diplomacy. 
Some five years before, the Colonel command- 
ing had looked into the fourteen fearless eyes 
of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had 
all applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had ~ 
asked them why the three stars should he, a 
Colonel of the Line, command a dashed nur- 
sery for double-dashed bottle-suckers who put 
on condemned tin spurs and rode qualified 
mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black 
Regiments. He was a rude man and a ter- 
rible. Wherefore the remnant took measures 
[with the half-butt as an engine of public opin- 
ion} till the rumor went abroad that young 
men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to 
the Staff Corps, had many and varied trials 
to endure. However, a regiment had just as 
much right to its own secrets as a woman. 
When Bobby came up from Deolali and 
took his place among the Tail Twisters, it was 
rently but firmly borne in upon him that the 
Regiment was his father and his mother and 
his indissolubly wedded wife, and that there 
was no crime under the canopy of heaven 
blacker than that of bringing shame on the 


\ 


yD 
Wea 
ie 
- 
‘ 


\ ONLY A SUBALTERN 139 


Regiment, which was the best-shooting, best- 
drilled, best set-up, bravest, most illustrious, 
and in all respects most desirable Regiment 
within the compass of the Seven Seas. He 
was taught the legends of the Mess Plate, from 
the great grinning Golden Gods that had come 
out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the sil- 
ver-mounted markhorhorn snuff-mull pre- 
sented by the last C. O. [he who spake to the 
seven subalterns]. And every one of those 
legends told him of battles fought at long 
odds, without fear as without support; of hos- 
pitality catholic as an Arab’s; of friendships 
deep as the sea and steady as the fighting-line ; 
of honor won by hard roads for honor’s sake; 
and of instant and unquestioning devotion to 
the Regiment—the Regiment that claims the 
lives of all and lives forever. 

More than once, too, he came officially into 
contact with the Regimental colors, which 
looked like the lining of a bricklayer’s hat on 
the end of a chewed stick. Bobby did not 
kneel and worship them, because British sub- 
alterns are not constructed in that manner. 
Indeed, he condemned them for their weight 
at the very moment that they were filling him 
with awe and other more noble sentiments. 

But best of all was the occasion when he 


140 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


moved with the Tail Twisters in review order 
at the breaking of a November day. Allowing 
for duty-men and sick, the Regiment was one 
thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby be- 
longed to them; for was he not a Subaltern of 
the Line—the whole Line and nothing but the 
Line—as the tramp of two thousand one hun- 
dred and sixty sturdy ammunition boots at- 
tested? He would not have changed places 
with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling 
by in a pillar of cloud to a chorus of “Strong 
right! Strong left!’ or Hogan-Yale of the 
White Hussars, leading his squadron for all 
it was worth, with the price of horseshoes 
thrown in; or “Tick” Boileau, trying to live 
up to his fierce blue and gold turban while the 
wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched to a 
gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping 
Walers of the White Hussars. 

They fought through the clear cool day, and 
Bobby felt a little thrill run down his spine 
when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the 
empty cartridge-cases hopping from the 
breech-blocks after the roar of the volleys; for 
he knew that he should live to hear that sound 
in action. The review ended in a glorious 
chase across the plain—hbatteries thundering 
after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White 


\ 


\ ONLY A SUBALTERN {Al 
Hussars, and the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunt- 
ing a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy Singhs 
panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty 
and dripping long before noon, but his enthu- 
siasm was merely focused—not diminished. 

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his 

“skipper,” that is to say, the Captain of his 
Company, and to be instructed in the dark art 
and mystery of managing men, which is a 
very large part of the Profession of Arms. 

“Tf you haven't a taste that way,” said Re- 
vere, between his puffs of his cheroot, “you'll 


never be able to get the hang of it, but remem- 


ber, Bobby, ’tisn’t the best drill, though drill is 
nearly everything, that hauls a Regiment 
through Hell and out on the other side. It’s 
the man who knows how to handle men— 
goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on.’ 

“Dormer, for instance,” said Bobby, “I 
think he comes under the head of fool-men. 
He mopes like a sick owl.” 

“That’s where you make your mistake, my 
son. Dormer isn’t a fool yet, but he’s a dashed 
dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes fun 
of his socks before kit-inspection. Dormer, 
being two-thirds pure brute, goes into a cor- 
ner and growls.” 

“Flow do you know?” said Bobby, admir- 


ingly. 


142 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


“Because a Company commander has to 
know these things—because, if he does not 
know, he may have crime—ay, murder—brew- 
ing under his very nose and yet not see that it’s 
there. Dormer is being badgered out of his 
mind—big as he is—and he hasn’t intellect 
enough to resent it. He’s taken to quiet booz- 
ing and, Bobby, when the butt of a room goes 
on the drink, or takes to moping by himself, 
measures are necessary to pull him out of him- 
self.” 

“What measures? ’Man can’t run round 
coddling his men forever.” 

“No. The men would precious soon show 


him that he was not wanted. You’ve got to”’— | 


Here the Color-Sergeant entered with some 
papers; Bobby reflected for a while as Revere 
looked through the Company forms. 

“Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant?” 
Bobby asked, with the air of one continuing 
an interrupted conversation. 

“No, sir. Does ’is dooty like a hortomato,” 
said the Sergeant, who delighted in long 
words. “A dirty soldier, and ’e’s under full 
stoppages for new kit. It’s covered with 
scales, sir.” 

“Scales? What scales?” 

“Fish-scales, sir. ’E’s always pokin’ in the 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 143 


mud by the river an’ a-cleanin’ them muchly- 
fish with ’is thumbs.” Revere was still ab- 
sorbed in the Company papers, and the Ser- 
geant, who was sternly fond of Bobby, con- 
tinued,—“‘ ’E generally goes down there when 
’e’s got “is skinful, beggin’ your pardon, sir, 
an’ they do say that the more lush—in-he-bri- 
ated ’e is, the more fish ’e catches. They call 
im the Looney Fishmonger in the Comp’ny, 
sir,” 

Revere signed the last paper and the Ser- 
geant retreated. 

“It’s a filthy amusement,” sighed Bobby to 
himself. Then aloud to Revere: “Are you 
really worried about Dormer?” 

“A little. You see he’s never mad enough to 
send to hospital, or drunk enough to run in, 
but at any minute he may flare up, brooding 
and sulking as he does. He resents any inter- 
est being shown in him, and the only time I 
took him out shooting he all but shot me by 
accident.” 

“I fish,” said Bobby, with a wry face. “I 
hire a country-boat and go down the river 
from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable 
Dormer goes with me—if you can spare us 
both.” 

“You blazing young fool!’’ said Revere, but 


3 


144 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


his heart was full of much more pleasant 
words. 

Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private 
Dormer for mate, dropped down the river on 
Thursday morning—the Private at the bow, 
the Subaltern at the helm. The Private glared 
uneasily at the Subaltern, who respected the re- 
serve of the Private. 

After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, 
saluted, and said—“‘Bey y’ pardon, sir, but 
was you ever on the Durh’m Canal ?” 

“No,” said Bobby Wick. “Come and have 
some tiffin.” 

They ate in silence. As the evening fell, 
Private Dormer broke forth, speaking to him- 
selfi— 

“Hi was on the Durh’m Canal, jes’ such a 
night, come next week twelve month, a-trailin’ 
of my toes in the water.” He smoked and 
said no more till bedtime. 

The witchery of the dawn turned the grey 
river-reaches to purple, gold, and opal; and it 
was as though the lumbering dhomi crept 
across the splendors of a new heaven. 

Private Dormer popped his head out of his 
blanket and gazed at the glory below and 
around. 

“Well—damn—my eyes!’ said Private 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 146 


Dormer, in an awed whisper. “This ’ere is 
like a bloomin’ gallantry-show!”’ For the rest 
of the day he was dumb, but achieved an en- 
sanguined filthiness through the cleaning of 
big fish. 

The boat returned on Saturday evening. 
Dormer had been struggling with speech since 
noon. As the lines and luggage were being 
disembarked, he found tongue. 

“Beg y’ pardon, sir,” he said, “but would 
you—would you min’ shakin’ ’ands with me, 
sir?” 

“Of course not,” said Bobby, and he shook 
accordingly. Dormer returned to barracks 
and Bobby to mess. 

“He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, 
I think,” said Bobby. ‘My aunt, but he’s a 
filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him 
clean ‘them muchly-fish with ’is thumbs’ ?” 

“Anyhow,” said Revere, three weeks later 
“he’s doing his best to keep his things clean.” 

When the spring died, Bobby joined in the 
general scramble for Hill leave, and to his sur- 
prise and delight secured three months. 

“As good a boy as I want,” said Revere, the 
admiring skipper. 

“The best of the batch,” said the Adjutant 
to the Colonel. “Keep back that young skrim- 


146 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


shanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him 
sit up.” 

So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar 
with a tin box of gorgeous raiment. 

“**Son of Wick—old Wick of Chota-Bul- 
dana? Ask him to dinner, dear,” said the 
aged men. 

“What a nice boy!” said the matrons and 
the maids. 

“First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri—ipping!” 
said Bobby Wick, and ordered new white cord 
breeches on the strength of it, _ 

“We're in a bad way,” wrote Revere to 
Bobby at the end of two months. “Since you 
left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is 
fairly rotten with it—two hundred in hospital, 
about a hundred in cells—drinking deep to 
keep off fever—and the Companies on parade 
fifteen file strong at the outside. There’s 
rather more sickness in the out-villages than I 
care for, but then I’m so blistered with 
prickly-heat that I’m ready to hang myself. 
What’s the yarn about your mashing a Miss 
Haverley up there? Not serious, I hope? 
You’re over-young to hang millstones round 
your neck, and the Colonel will turf you out of 
that in double-quick time if you attempt it.” 

It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 147 


out of Simla, but a much more to be respected 
Commandant. The sickness in the out-vil- 
lages spread, the Bazar was put out of bounds, 
and then came the news that the Tail Twisters 
must go into camp. The message flashed to 
the Hill stations—‘‘Cholera—Leave stopped 
—Officers recalled.” Alas, for the white 
gloves in the neatly soldered boxes, the rides 
and the dances and picnics that were to be, the 
loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid! 
Without demur and without question, fast as 
tonga could fly or pony gallop, back to their 
Regiments and their Batteries, as though they 
were hastening to their weddings, fled the sub-. 
alterns. 

Bobby received his orders on returning from 
a dance at Viceregal Lodge where he had— 
but only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby 
had said or how many waltzes he had claimed 
for the next ball. Six in the morning saw 
Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching 
rain, the whirl of the last waltz still in his ears, 
and an intoxication due neither to wine nor 
waltzing in his brain. 

“Good man!” shouted Deighton of the 
Horse Battery, through the mists. “Whar you 
raise dat tonga? I’m coming with you. Ow! 
But I’ve a head and a half. J didn’t sit out all 


148 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


night. They say the Battery’s awful bad,” 
and he hummed dolorously— 


“Leave the what at the what’s-its-name, 
Leave the flock without shelter, 
Leave the corpse uninterred. — 
Leave the bride at the altar! 


“My faith! Ill be more bally corpse than 
bride, though, this journey. Jump in, Bobby. 
Get on, Coachwan!’’ 

On the umbrella platform waited a detach- 
ment of officers discussing the latest news 
from the stricken cantonment, and it was here 
that Bobby learned the real condition of the 
Tail Twisters. 

“They went into camp,” said an elderly 
Major recalled from the whist-tables at Mus- 


soorie to a sickly Native Regiment, “they went | 


into camp with two hundred and ten sick in 
carts. ‘wo hundred and ten fever cases only, 
and the balance looking like so many ghosts 


with sore eyes. A Madras Regiment could 


have walked through ’em.” 

“But they were as fit as be-damned when I 
left them!” said Bobby. 

“Then you'd better make them as fit as be- 
damned when you rejoin,’ said the Major, 
brutally. 


ee a a ee ee 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 149 


Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain- 
splashed windowpane as the train lumbered 
across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the 
health of the Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini 
Tal had sent down her contingent with all 
speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie 
Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the 
full stretch of their strength; while from 
cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up 
the last straggler of the little army that was to 
fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor 
honor for the winning, against an enemy none 
other than “the sickness that destroyeth in the 
noonday.” 

And as each man reported himself, he said: 
“This is a bad business,” and went about his 
own forthwith, for every Regiment and Bat- 
tery in the cantonment was under canvas, the 
sickness bearing them company. 

Bobby fought his way through the rain to 
the Tail Twisters’ temporary mess, and Re- 
vere could have fallen on the boy’s neck for the 
joy of seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once 
more. 

“Keep ’em amused and interested,” said Re- 
vere, “They went on the drink, poor fools, 
after the first two cases, and there was no im- 
provement. Oh, it’s good to have you back, 
Bobby! Porkiss is a—never mind.” 


150 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


Deighton: came over from the Artillery 
camp to attend a dreary mess dinner, and con- 
tributed to the general gloom by nearly weep- 
ing over the condition of his beloved Battery. 
Porkiss so far forgot himself as to insinuate 
that the presence of the officers could do no 
earthly good, and that the best thing would 
be to send the entire Regiment into hospital 
and “let the doctors look after them.” Por- 
kiss was demoralized with fear, nor was his 
peace of mind restored when Revere said 
coldly: “Oh! The sooner you go out the bet- 
ter, if that’s your way of thinking. Any pub- 
lic school could send us fifty good men in your 
place, but it takes time, time, Porkiss, and 
money, and a certain amount of trouble, to 
make a Regiment. ’S’pose you’re the person 
we go into camp for, eh?” 

Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a 
great and chilly fear which a drenching in the 
rain did not allay, and, two days later, quitted 
this world for another where, men do fondly 
hope, allowances are made for the weaknesses 
of the flesh. The Regimental Sergeant-Major 
looked wearily across the Sergeants’ Mess 
tent when the news was announced. 

“There goes the worst of them,” he said. 
“Tt’ll take the best, and then, please God, it’ll 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 15 


Stop.” The Sergeants were silent till one 
said: “It couldn’t be him!’ and all knew of 
whom Travis was thinking. 

Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of 
his Company, rallying, rebuking, mildly, as is 
consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the 
faint-hearted; haling the sound into the 
watery sunlight when there was a break in the 
weather, and bidding them be of good cheer 
for their trouble was nearly at an end; scut- 
tling on his dun pony round the outskirts of 
the camp and heading back men who, with the 
innate perversity of British soldiers, were al- 
Ways wandering into infected villages, or 
drinking deeply from rain-flooded marshes; 
comforting the panic-stricken with rude 
speech, and more than once tending the dying 
who had no  friends—the men without 
“townies”; organizing, with banjos and 
burned cork, Sing-songs which should allow 
the talent of the Regiment full play; and gen- 
erally, as he explained, “playing the giddy 
garden-goat all round.” 

“You're worth a half a dozen of us, Bobby,” 
said Revere in a moment of enthusiasm. 
“How the devil do you keep it up ?” 

Bobby made no answer, but had Revere 
looked into the breast-pocket of his coat he 


152 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written 
letters which perhaps accounted for the power 
that possessed the boy. A letter came to 
Bobby every other day. The spelling was not 
above reproach, but the sentiments must have 
been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby’s 
eyes softened marvelously, and he was wont 
to fali into a tender abstraction for a while 
‘ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into 
his work. 

By what power he drew after him the hearts 
of the roughest, and the Tail Twisters counted 
in their ranks some rough diamonds indeed, 
was a mystery to both skipper and C. O., who 
iearned from the regimental chaplain that 
Bobby was considerably more in request in 
the hospital tents than the Reverend John 
Emery. : 

“The men seem fond of you. Are you in 
the hospitals much?” said the Colonel, who did 
his daily round and ordered the men to get 
well with a hardness that did not cover his 
bitter grief. 

‘A little, sir,” said Bobby. 

“Shouldn’t go there too often if I were you. 
They say it’s not contagious, but there’s no 
use in running unnecessary risks. We can’t 
afford to have you down, y’ know.” 


a. * 2a ae 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 153 


Six days later, it was with the utmost diffi- 
culty that the post-runner plashed his way out 
to the camp with the mail-bags, for the rain 
was falling in torrents. Bobby received a let- 
ter, bore it off to his tent, and, the programme 
for the next week’s Sing-song being satisfac- 
torily disposed of, sat down to answer it. For 
an hour the unhandy pen toiled over the paper, 
and where sentiment rose to more than normal 
tide-level, Bobby Wick stuck out his tongue 
and breathed heavily. He was not used to let- 
ter-writing. 

_ “Beg y’ pardon, sir,” said a voice at the tent 
door; “but Dormer’s ’orrid bad, sir, an’ 
they’ve taken him orf, sir.” 

“Damn Private Dormer and you too!” said 
Bobby Wick, running the blotter over the half- 
finished letter. ‘Tell him I’ll come in the 
morning,” 

“"E’s awful bad, sir;’”’ said the voice, hesi- 
tatingly. There was an undecided squelching 
of heavy boots. 

“Well?” said Bobby, impatiently. 

“Excusin’ ’imself before’and for takin’ the 
liberty, ’e says it would be a comfort for to as- 
sist “im, sir, if”’— . 

“Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in 
out of the rain till I’m ready. What blasted 


154 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


nuisances you are! That’s brandy. Drink 
some; you want it. Hang on to my stirrup 
and tell me if I go too fast.” — | 

Strengthened by a four-finger “nip”? which 
he swallowed without a wink, the Hospital Or- 
derly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, 
and very disgusted pony as it shambled to the 
hospital tent. 

Private Dormer was certainly “ ’orrid bad.” 
He had all but reached the stage of collapse 
and was not pleasant to look upon. 

“What's this, Dormer?” said Bobby, bend- 
ing over the man. “You're not going out this 
time. You've got to come fishing with me 
once or twice more yet.” 

The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a 
whisper said—‘‘Beg y’ pardon, sir, disturbin’ 
of you now, but would you min’ ’oldin’ my 
An Site 

Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy 
cold hand closed on his own like a vice, forc- 
ing a lady’s ring which was on the little finger 
deep into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and 
waited, the water dripping from the hem of 
his trousers. An hour passed and the grasp of 
the hand did not relax, nor did the expression 
of the drawn face change., Bobby with infinite 
craft lit himself a cheroot with the left hand, 


““Beg y’ pardon, Sir, but Dormer’s ’orrid bad.” 


Only a Subaltern, p. 153 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 1s8 


his right arm was numbed to the elbow, and 
resigned himself to a night of pain. 

Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern 
sitting on the side of a sick man’s cot, and a 
Doctor in the doorway using language unfit 
for publication. 

“Have you been here all night, you young 
ass?” said the Doctor. 

“There or thereabouts,” said Bobby, rue- 
fully. “He’s frozen on to me.” 

Dormer’s mouth shut with a click. He 
turned his head and sighed. The clinging 
hand opened, and Bobby’s arm fell useless at 
his side. | 

“Hell do,” said the Doctor, quietly. “It 
must have been a toss-up all through the night. 
*Think you're to be congratulated on this 
case.” 

“Oh, bosh!”’ said Bobby. “I thought thé 
man had gone out long ago—only—only I 
didn’t care to take my hand away. Rub my 
arm down, there’s a good chap. What a grip 
the brute has! I’m chilled to the marrow!” 
He passed out of the tent shivering. 

Private Dormer was allowed to celebrate his 
repulse of Death by strong waters. Four days 
later, he sat on the side of his cot and said to 
the patients mildly: “I’d ’a’ liken to ’a’ spoken 
to ’im—-so I should.” 

Kip. 6-——F 


156 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


But at that time Bobby was reading yet an- 
other letter—he had the most persistent corre- 
spondent of any man in camp—and was even 
then about to write that the sickness had 
abated, and in another week at the outside 
would be gone. He did not intend to say that 
the chill of a sick man’s hand seemed to have 
struck into the heart whose capacities for af- 
fection he dwelt on at such length. He did in- 
tend to enclose the illustrated programme of 
the forthcoming Sing-song whereof he was 
not a little proud. He also intended to write 
on many other matters which do not concern 
us, and doubtless would have done so but for 
the slight feverish headache which made him 
dull and unresponsive at mess. 

“You are overdoing it, Bobby,” said his 
skipper. ‘’Might give the rest of us credit of 
doing a little work. You go on as if you were 
the whole Mess rolled into one. Take it easy.” 

v1 will, said Bobby. “I’m feeling done up, 
somehow.” Revere looked at him anxiously — 
and said nothing. 

There was a flickering of lanterns about the 
camp that night, and a rumor that brought 
men out of their cots to the tent doors, pad- 
dling of the naked feet of doolie-bearers and 
the rush of a galloping horse. 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 1s7 


“Wot’s up?” asked twenty tents: and 
through twenty tents ran the answer—“Wick, 
‘e’s down.” 

They brought the news to Revere and he 
groaned. “Any one but Bobby and I shouldn’t 
have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.” 

“Not going out this journey,” gasped 
Bobby, as he was lifted from the doolie. “Not 
going out this journey.” Then with an air of 
supreme conviction—‘TI can’t, you see.” 

“Not if I can do anything!” said the Sur- 
geon-Major, who had hastened over from the 
mess where he had been dining. 

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought to- 
gether with Death for the life of Bobby Wick. 
Their work was interrupted by a hairy appari- 
tion in a blue-grey dressing-gown who stared 
in horror at the bed and cried—‘“Oh, my 
Gawd! It can’t be *im?’ until an indignant 
_ Hospital Orderly whisked him away. 

If care of man and a desire to live could 
have done aught, Bobby would have been 
saved. As it was, he made a fight of three 
days,and the Surgeon-Major’s brow uncreased. 
“We'll save him yet,” he said; and the Sur- 
geon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, 
had a very youthful heart, went out upon the 
word and pranced joyously in the mud. 


158 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


“Not going out this journey,” whispered 
Bobby Wick, gallantly, at the end of the third 
day. 

“Bravo!” said the Surgeon-Major. “That’s 
the way to look at it, Bobby.” 

As evening fell a grey shade gathered round 
Bobby’s mouth, and he turned his face to the 
tent wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major 
frowned. 

“lm awfully tired,” said Bobby, very 
faintly. ‘“‘What’s the use of bothering me with 
medicine? I—don’t—want—it. Let me 
alone.” 

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby 
was content to drift away on the easy tide of 
Death. 

“Tt’s no good,” said the Surgeon-Major. 
“THe doesn’t want to live. He’s meeting it, 
poor child.” And he blew his nose. 

Half a mile away, the regimental band was 
playing the overture to the Sing-song, for the 
men had been told that Bobby was out of dan- 
ger. The clash of the brass and the wail of the 
horns reached Bobby’s ears. 

Is there a single joy or pain 
That I should never kno-ow? 


You do not love me, ’tis in vain, 
Bid me good-bye and go! 


ONLY A SUBALTERN 150 


An expression of hopeless irritation crossed 
the boy’s face, and he tried to shake his head. 

The Surgeon-Major bent down—‘‘What is 
it? Bobby?”—“Not that waltz,’ muttered 
Bobby. “That’s our own—our very ownest 
own. . . . Mummy dear.” 

With this he sank into the stupor that gave 
place to death early next morning. 

Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose 
very white, went into Bobby’s tent to write a 
letter to Papa Wick which should bow the 
white head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota- 
Buldana in the keenest sorrow of his life. 
Bobby’s little store of papers lay in confusion 
on the table, and among them a half-finished 
letter. The last sentence ran: “So you see, 
darling, there is really no fear, because as long 
as I know you care for me and J care for you, 
nothing can touch me.” 

Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. 
When he came out his eyes were redder than 
ever. 


* * 5 ok * * 


Private Conklin sat on a turned-down 
bucket, and listened to a not unfamiliar tune. . 
Private Conklin was a convalescent and should 
eG ae tenderly treated. 


160 ONLY A SUBALTERN 


“Ho!” said Private Conklin. “There’s an- 
other bloomin’ orf’cer da—ed.”’ 

The bucket shot from under him, and his 
eyes filled with a smythyful of sparks. A tall 
man in a blue-grey bedgown was regarding 
him with deep disfavor. 7 

“You ought to take shame for yourself, 
Conky! Orf’cer—bloomin’ orf’cer? T'll learn 
you to misname the likes of ‘im. Hangel! 
Bloomin’ Hangel! That’s wot ’e is!” 

And the Hospital Orderly was so satisfied 
with the justice of the punishment that he did 
not even order Private Dormer back to his 
cot, 


‘MATTER OF A PRIVATE 


y 


; yee ary 


IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE 


Hurrah! hurrah! a soldier’s life for me! 
Shout, boys, shout! for it makes you jolly and free. 
—The Ramrod Corps. 


ean who have seen, say that one of 

the quaintest spectacles of human frailty 
is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls’ school. 
Jt starts without warning, generally on a hot 
afternoon, among the elder pupils. A girl gig- 
gles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then 
she throws up her head, and cries, “Honk, 
honk, honk,” like a wild goose, and tears mix 
with the laughter. If the mistress be wise, she © 
will rap out something severe at this point to 
check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and 
send for a drink of water, the chances are 
largely in favor of another girl laughing at the 
afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus the 
trouble spreads, and may end in half of what 
answers to the Lower Sixth of a boys’ school 
rocking and whooping together. Given a 
week of warm weather, two stately prome- 
nades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal 

163 


164 IN THE MATTER 


in the middle of the day, a certain amount of 
nagging from the teachers, and a few other 
things, some amazing effects develop. At 
least, this is what folk say who have had ex- 
perience. | 

Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent 
and the Colonel of a British Infantry Regi- 
ment would be justly shocked at any compari- 
son being made between their respective 
charges, But it is a fact that, under certain 
circumstances, Thomas in bulk can be worked 
up into dithering, rippling hysteria. He does 
not weep, but he shows his trouble unmistak- 
ably, and the consequences get into the news- 
papers, and all the good people who hardly 
know a Martini from a Snider say: “Take 
away the brute’s ammunition!’ 

Thomas isn’t a brute, and his business, 


which is to look after the virtuous people, de-— 


mands that he shall have his ammunition to 
his hand. He doesn’t wear silk stockings, and 
he really ought to be supplied with a new Ad- 
jective to help him to express his opinions: but, 
for all that, he is a great man. If you call him 
“the heroic defender of the national honor” one 
day, and “a brutal and licentious soldiery” the 
next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks 
upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to 


a ae ae 


OF A PRIVATE 165 


speak for Thomas except people who have 
theories to work off on him; and nobody un- 
derstands Thomas except Thomas, and he does 
not always know what is the matter with him- 
self. 

That is the prologue. This is the story: 

Corporal Slane was engaged to be married 
to Miss Jhansi M’Kenna, whose history is 
well known in the regiment and elsewhere. 
He had his Colonel’s permission, and, being 
popular with the men, every arrangement had 
been made to give the wedding what Private 
Ortheris called ‘‘eeklar.” It fell in the heart 
of the hot weather, and, after the wedding, 
Slane was going up to the Hills with the bride. 
None the less, Slane’s grievance was that the 
affair would be only a hired-carriage wedding, 
and he felt that the “eeklar’’ of that was 
meagre. Miss M’Kenna did not care so much. 
The Sergeant’s wife was helping her to make 
her wedding dress, and she was very busy. 
Slane was, just then, the only moderately con- 
tented man in barracks. All the rest were 
more or less miserable. 

And they had so much to make them happy, 
too. All their work was over at eight in the 
morning, and for the rest of the day they could 
lie on their backs and smoke Canteen-plug and 


166 IN THE MATTER 


swear at the punkah-coolies. They enjoyed a 
fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the day, 
and then threw themselves down on their cots 
and sweated and slept till it was cool enough 
to go out with their “towny,’”’ whose vocabu- 
lary contained less than six hundred words, 
and the Adjective, and whose views on every 
conceivable question they had heard many 
times before. 

There was the Canteen, of course, and there 
was the Temperance Room with the second- 
hand papers in it; but a man of any profession 
cannot read for eight hours a day in a temper- 
ature of 96° or 98° in the shade, running up 
sometimes to 103° at midnight. Very few 
men, even though they get a pannikin of flat, 
stale, muddy beer and hide it under their cots, 
can continue drinking for six hours a day. 
One man tried, but he died, and nearly the 
whole regiment went to his funeral because it 
gave them something to do. It was too early 
for the excitement of fever or cholera. The 
men could only wait and wait and wait, and 
watch the shadow of the barrack creeping 
across the blinding white dust. That was a 
gay life. 

They lounged about cantonments—it was 
too hot for any sort of game, and almost too 


OF A PRIVATE 167 


hot for vice—and fuddled themselves in the 
evening, and filled themselves to distension 
with the healthy nitrogenous food provided 
for them, and the more they stoked the less ex- 
ercise they took and more explosive they grew. 
Then tempers began to wear away, and men 
fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, 
for they had nothing else to think of. The 
tone of the repartees changed, and instead of 
saying light-heartedly: “I'll knock your silly 
face in,’ men grew laboriously polite and 
hinted that the cantonments were not big 
enough for themselves and their enemy, and 
that there would be more space for one of the 
two in another Place. 

It may have been the Devil who arranged 
the thing, but the fact of the case is that Los- 
son had for a long time been worrying Sim- 
mons in an aimless way. It gave him occupa- 
tion. The two had their cots side by side, and 
would sometimes spend a long afternoon 
swearing at each other; but Simmons was 
afraid of Losson and dared not challenge him 
to a fight. He thought over the words in the 
hot still nights, and half the hate he felt 
toward Losson he vented on the wretched pun- 
kah-coolie. 

Losson bought a parrot in the bazar, and 


168 IN THE MATTER 


put it into a little cage, and lowered the cag: 
into the cool darkness of a well, and sat 
the well-curb, shouting bad language down 
the parrot. He taught it to say: “Simmons, 
ye so-oor,’ which means swine, and several 


ny 


f 
/ 
) 


other things entirely unfit for publication. — 


He was a big gross man, and he shook like a 
jelly when the parrot had the sentence cor- 
rectly. Simmons, however, shook with rage, 
for all the room were laughing at him—the 
parrot was such a disreputable puff of green 
feathers and it looked so human when it chat- 
tered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat 
legs, on the side of the cot, and ask the parrot 
what it thought of Simmons. The parrot 
would answer: “Simmons, ye so-oor.”” “Good 
boy,’ Losson used to say, scratching the par- 
rot’s head; “ye ‘ear that, Sim?” And Sim- 
mons used to turn over on his stomach and 
make answer: “I ’ear. Take ’eed you dont 
‘ear something one of these days.” 

In the restless nights, after he had been 
asleep all day, fits of blind rage came upon 
Simmons and held him till he trembled all 
over, while he thought in how many different 
ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes he 
would picture himself trampling the life out 
of the man, with heavy ammunition-boots, and 


OF A PRIVATE 169 


et others smashing in his face with the butt, 
and at others jumping on his shoulders and 
dragging the head back till the neckbone 
cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and 
fevered, and he would reach out for another 
sup of the beer in the pannikin. 

But the fancy that came to him most fre- 
quently and stayed with him longest was one 
connected with the great roll of fat under Los- 
son’s right ear. He noticed it first on a moon- 
light night, and thereafter it was always be- 
fore his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. 
A man could get his hand upon it and tear 
away one side of the neck; or he could place 
the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all 
the head in a flash. Losson had no right to be 
sleek and contented and well-to-do, when he, 
Simmons, was the butt of the room. Some 
day, perhaps, he would show those who 
laughed at the “Simmons, ye so-oor’ joke, 
that he was as good as the rest, and held 
a man’s life in the crook of his forefinger. 
When Losson snored, Simmons hated him 
more bitterly than ever. Why should Losson 
be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay 
awake hour after hour, tossing and turning on 
the tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing into 
his right side and his head throbbing and ach- 


170 IN THE MATTER 


ing after Canteen? He thought over this fo 
many many nights, and the world became ur- 
profitable to him. He even blunted his natut- 
ally fine appetite with beer and tobacco: and all 
the while the parrot talked at and made a mock 
of him. | 
The heat continued and the tempers wore 
away more quickly than before. A Sergeant’s 
wife died of heat-apoplexy in the night, and 
the rumor ran abroad that it was cholera. 
Men rejoiced openly, hoping that it would 
spread and send them into camp. But that 
was a false alarm. 
It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the 
met were waiting in the deep double verandas 
for “Last Posts,” when Simmons went to the 
box at the foot of his bed, took out his pipe, 
and slammed the lid down with a bang that 
echoed through the deserted barrack like the 
crack of a rifle. Ordinarily speaking, the 
men would have taken no notice; but their 
nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They; 
jumped up, and three or four clattered into 
the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneel- 
ing by his box. Diy 
“Ow! It’s you, is it?’ they said and 
laughed foolishly. “We thought ’twas’— ie 
Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had 


“Blind with rage and rushed at Slane.” 


In the Matter of a Private, p. 176 


ne ; 3 AS 

: : We é : 

= - bsg = = 
ae i : 
i. Ps : ; . " 3 ; 


OF A PRIVATE I7t 


so shaken his fellows, what would not the real- 
ity do? 

“You thought it was—did you? And what 
makes you think?” he said, lashing himself 
into madness as he went on; “to Hell with 
your thinking, ye dirty spies.” 

“Simmons, ye so-oor,’ chuckled the parrot 
in the veranda, sleepily, recognizing a well- 
known voice. Now that was absolutely all. 

The tension snapped. Simmons fell back 
on the arm-rack deliberately,—the men were 
at the far end of the room,—and took out his 
rifle and packet of ammunition. “Don’t go 
playing the goat, Sim!” said Losson. “Put 
it down,” but there was a quaver in his voice. 
Another man stooped, slipped his boot and 
hurled it at Simmons’s head. The prompt an- 
swer was a shot which, fired at random, found 
its billet in Losson’s throat. Losson fell for- 
ward without a word, and the others scattered. 

“You thought it was!” yelled Simmons. 
“You're drivin’ me to it! I tell you you're 
drivin’ me to it! Get up, Losson, an’ don’t lie 
shammin’ there—you an’ your biasted parrit 
that druv me to it!” 

But there was an unaffected reality about 
Losson’s pose that showed Simmons what he 
had done. The men were still clamoring in 


172 IN THE MATTER 


the veranda. Simmons appropriated two 
more packets of ammunition and ran into the/ 
moonlight, muttering: “I'll make a night of it. 
Thirty roun’s, an’ the last for myself. Tak 

you that, you dogs!’ 

He dropped on one knee and fired into th 
brown of the men on the veranda, but the bul- 
let flew high, and landed in the brickwork with 
a vicious pwhit that made some of the younger 
ones turn pale. It is, as musketry theorists 
observe, one thing to fire and another to be 
fired at. 

Then the instinct of the chase flared up. 
The news spread from barrack to barrack, and 
the men doubled out intent on the capture of 
Simmons, the wild beast, who was heading for 
the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping now and 
again to send back a shot and a curse in the di- 
rection of his pursuers. 

“T’ll learn you to spy on me!” he shouted; 
“T’ll learn you to give me dorg’s names! Come 
on the ’ole lot o’ you! Colonel John Anthony 
Deever, C.B.!’—he turned toward the Infan-. 
try Mess and shook his rifle—“you think 
yourself the devil of a man—but I tell you that 
if you put your ugly old carcass outside o’ that 
door, I’ll make you the poorest-lookin’ man in 
the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony 


OF A PRIVATE 173 


Deever, C.B.! Come out and see me practiss 
on the rainge. I’m the crack shot of the ’ole 
bloomin’ battalion.” In proof of which state- 
ment Simmons fired at the lighted windows of 
the mess-house. 

“Private Simmons, E Comp’ny, on the Cav- 
alry p’rade-ground, Sir, with thirty rounds,” 
said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. 
Shootin’ right and lef’, Sir. Shot Private 
Losson. What's te be done, Sir?” 

Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B., sallied 
out, only to be saluted by a spurt of dust at 
his feet. 

“Pull up!’ said the Second in Command; “T 
don’t want my step in that way, Colonel. He’s 
as dangerous as a mad dog.” 

“Shoot him like one, then,” said the Colonel, 
bitterly, “if he won’t take his chance. My 
regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads 
I could have understood.” 

Private Simmons had occupied a strong po- 
sition near a well on the edge of the parade- 
ground, and was defying the regiment to come 
on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, 
for there is small honor in being shot by a fel- 
low-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in 
hand, threw himself down on the ground, and 
wormed his way toward the well. 


174 IN THE MATTER 


| 

“Don’t shoot,” said he to the men round / 
him; “like as not you'll ‘it me. Tl catch the; — 
beggar, livin’.” | 

Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and) 
the noise of trap-wheels could be heard across) . 
the plain. Major Oldyne, Commanding the 
Horse Battery, was coming back from a dinner 
in the Civil Lines; was driving after his usual 
custom—that is to say, as fast as the horse 
could go. 

“A orf’cer! A blooming spangled orf’cer!” 
shrieked Simmons; “I’ll make a scarecrow of 
that orf’cer!” The trap stopped. 

“What's this?’ demanded the Major of 
Gunners. ‘You there, drop your rifle.” 

“Why, it’s Jerry Blazes! I ain’t got no 
quatrel with you, Jerry Blazes. Pass frien’, 
an’ all’s well!” 

But Jerry Blazes had not the faintest inten- 
tion of passing a dangerous murderer. He 
was, as his adoring Battery swore long and 
fervently, without knowledge of fear, and they 
were surely the best judges, for Jerry Blazes, 
it was notorious, had done his possible to kill 
a man each time the Battery went out. 

He walked toward Simmons, with the inten- 
tion of rushing him, and knocking him down. 
“Don’t make me do it, Sir,”’ said Simmons; 


OF A PRIVATE 178 


| “7 ain’t got nothing agin you. Ah! you 
would ?’—the Major broke into a run—Take 
_ that then!” 

The Major dropped with a bullet through 
his shoulder, and Simmons stood over him. 
He had lost the satisfaction of killing Losson 
in the desired way: but here was a helpless 
body to his hand. Should he slip in another 
cartridge, and blow off the head, or with the 
butt smash in the white face? He stopped to 
consider, and a cry went up from the far side 
of the parade-ground: “He’s killed Jerry 
Blazes!’ But in the shelter of the well-pillars 
Simmons was safe, except when he stepped 
out to fire. “Til blow yer ‘andsome ’ead off, 
Jerry Blazes,” said Simmons, reflectively. 
“Six an’ three is nine an’ one is ten, an’ that 
leaves me another nineteen, an’ one for my- 
self.” He tugged at the string of the second 
packet of ammunition. Corporal Slane 
crawled out of the shadow of a bank into the 
moonlight, 

“I see you!” said Simmons. “Come a bit 
furder on an’ I’ll do for you.” 

“T’m comin’,” said Corporal Slane, briefly; 
“you've done a bad day’s work, Sim.- Come 
out ‘ere an’ come back with me.” 

“Come to,’—laughed Simmons, sending a 


176 IN THE MATTER 


cartridge home with his thumb. “Not before 
I’ve settled you an’ Jerry Blazes.” 

The Corporal was lying at full length in the 
dust of the parade-ground, a rifle under him. 
Some of the less-cautious men in the distance 
shouted: “Shoot ’im! Shoot ’im, Slane!’ 

“You move ’and or foot, Slane,” said Sim- 
mons, “an’ I'll kick Jerry Blazes’ ’ead in, and 
shoot you after.” 

“I ain’t movin’,” said the Corporal, raising 
his head; “you daren’t ’it a man on ’is legs. 
Let go o’ Jerry Blazes an’ come out o’ that 
with your fistes. Come an’ ‘it me. You 
daren’t, you bloomin’ dog-shooter !” : 

“T dare.” 

“You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin’, 
Sheeny butcher, you lie. See there!” Slane 
kicked the rifle away, and stood up in the peril 
of his life. “Come on, now!” 

The temptation was more than Simmons 
could resist, for the Corporal in his white 
clothes offered a perfect mark. 


“Don’t misname me,” shouted Simmons, 


firing as he spoke. The shot missed, and the 
shooter, blind with rage, threw his rifle down 
and rushed at Slane from the protection of the 
well. Within striking distance, he kicked 
savagely at Slane’s stomach, but the weedy 


—<— -o—s i : 
ee ep ete ee 


OF A PRIVATE 77 


Corporal knew something of Simmons’s weak- 
ness, and knew, too, the deadly guard for that 
kick. Bowing forward and drawing up his 
right leg till the heel of the right foot was set 
some three inches above the inside of the left 
knee-cap, he met the blow standing on one leg 
—exactly as Gonds stand when they meditate 
—and ready for the fall that would follow. 
There was an oath, the Corporal fell over to 
his own left as shinbone met shinbone, and the 
Private collapsed, his right leg broken an inch 
above the ankle. 

“°Pity you don’t know that guard, Sim,” 
said Slane, spitting out the dust as he rose. 
Then raising his voice—‘‘Come an’ take him 
orf. I’ve bruk ’is leg.” This was not strictly 
true, for the Private had accomplished his own 
downfall, since it is the special merit of that 
leg-guard that the harder the kick the greater 
the kicker’s discomfiture. 

Slane walked to Jerry Blazes and hung over 
him with ostentatious anxiety, while Sim- 
mons, weeping with pain, was carried away. 
“"Ope you ain’t ’urt badly, Sir,” said Slane. 
The Major had fainted, and there was an 
ugly, ragged hole through the top of his arm. 
Slane knelt down and murmured: “S’elp me, 
I believe ’e’s dead. Well, if that ain’t my 
blooming luck all over!” 


178 IN THE MATTER 


But the Major was destined to lead his Bat- 
tery afield for many a long day with unshaken 
nerve. He was removed, and nursed and 
petted into convalescence, while the Battery 
discussed the wisdom of capturing Simmons, 
and blowing him from a gun. They idolized 
their Major, and his reappearance on parade 
brought about a scene nowhere provided for in 
the Army Regulations. 

Great, too, was the glory that fell to Slane’s 
share. The Gunners would have made him 
drunk thrice a day for at least a fortnight. 
Even the Colonel of his own regiment compli- 
mented him upon his coolness, and the local 
paper called him a hero. These things did not 
puff him up. When the Major offered him 
money and thanks, the virtuous Corporal took 
the one and and put aside the other. But he 
had a request to make and prefaced it with 
many a “Beg y’ pardon, Sir.” Could the 
Major see his way to letting the Slane- 
M’Kenna wedding be adorned by the presence 
of four Battery horses to pull a hired ba- 
rouche? The Major could, and so could the 
Battery. Excessively so. It was a gorgeous 
wedding. 


* 5 * * * ae 


OF A PRIVATE 179 


“Wot did I do it for?” said Corporal Siane. 
“For the ’orses o’ course. Jhansi ain’t a 
beauty to look at, but I wasn’t goin’ to ’ave a 
hired turnout. Jerry Blazes? If I ’adn’t ’a’ 
wanted something, Sim might ha’ blowed 
Jerry Blazes’ blooming ’ead into Hirish stew 
for aught I’d ’a’ cared.” 

And they hanged Private Simmons— 
hanged him as high as Haman in hollow 
square of the regiment; and the Colonel said it 
was Drink; and the Chaplain was sure it was 
the Devil; and Simmons fancied it was both, 
but he didn’t know, and only hoped his fate 
would be a warning to his companions; and 
half a dozen “intelligent publicists’ wrote six 
beautiful leading articles on “The Prevalence 
of Crime in the Army.” 

But not a soul thought of comparing the 
*“bloody-minded Simmons”’ to the squawking, 
gaping schoolgirl with which this story opens. 


ENLIGHTE 
hy PAGE TT, 


‘ 


NMENTS OF | 
MP. k ) | 


i 
i 
ere 


. THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF 
PAGET Tur 


“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern 
make the field ring with their importunate chink while 
thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow 
of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do 
not imagine that those who make the noise are the only 
inhabitants of the field—that, of course, they are many 
in number—or that, after all, they are other than the 
little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and 
troublesome insects of the hour.”—Burke: “Reflections 
on the Revolution in France.” 


HEY were sitting in the veranda of “the 
splendid palace of an Indian Pro-Con- 

sul”; surrounded by all the glory and mystery 
of the immemorial East. In plain English it 
was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed, 
mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of 
dusty tamarisk trees and divided from the 
road by a low mud wall. The green parrots 
screamed overhead as they flew in battalions 
to the river for their morning drink. Beyond 
the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the 
‘cattle and goats of the city were passing afield 
to graze. The remorseless white light of the 

183 


184 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


winter sunshine of Northern India lay upon 
everything and improved nothing, from the 
whining Persian-wheel by the lawn-tennis 
court to the long perspective of level road and 
the blue, domed tombs of Mohammedan saints 
just visible above the trees. 

“A Happy New Year,” said Orde to his 
guest. “It’s the first you’ve ever spent out of 
England, isn’t it?” 

“Yes. ’‘Happy New Year,” said Pagett, 
smiling at the sunshine. “What a divine cli- 
mate you have here! Just think of the brown 
cold fog hanging over London now!” And 
he rubbed his hands. 

It was more than twenty years since he had 
last seen Orde, his schoolmate, and their paths 
in the world had divided early. The one had 
quitted college to become a cog-wheel in the 
machinery of the great Indian Government; 
the other, more blessed with goods, had been 
whirled into a similar position in the English 
scheme. Three successive elections had not 
affected Pagett’s position with a loyal constit- 
uency, and he had grown insensibly to regard 
himself in some sort as a pillar of the Empire, 
whose real worth would be known later on. 
After a few years of conscientious attendance 
at many divisions, after newspaper battles m- 


ie 
Re 


OF PAGETT, M.-P. 185 


numerable and the publication of interminable 
correspondence, and more hasty oratory than 
in his calmer moments he cared to think upon, 
it occurred to him, as it had occurred to many 
of his fellows in Parliament, that a tour to In- 
dia would enable him to sweep a larger lyre 
and address himself to the problems of Impe- 
tial administration with a firmer hand. Ac- 
cepting, therefore, a general invitation ex- 


tended to him by Orde some years before, 


Pagett had taken ship to Karachi, and only 
over-night had been received with joy by the 
Deputy-Commissioner of Amara. They had 
sat late, discussing the changes and chances of 
twenty years, recalling the names of the dead, 
and weighing the futures of the living, as is 
the custom of men meeting after intervals of 


action. 


Next morning they smoked the after break- 
fast pipe in the veranda, still regarding each 
other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock- 
coat and garments much too thin for the time 
of the year, and a puggried sun-hat carefully 
and wonderfully made, Orde in a shooting 
coat, riding breeches, brown cowhide boots 
with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He 
had ridden some miles in the early morning 
to inspect a doubtful river dam. The men’s 


186 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


faces differed as much as their attire. Orde’s 
worn and wrinkled about the eyes, and griz- 
zled at the temples, was the harder and more 
square of the two, and it was with something 
like envy that the owner looked at the com- 


fortable outlines of Pagett’s blandly receptive _ 


countenance, the clear skin, the untroubled 
eye, and the mobile, clean-shaved lips. 

“And this is India!” said Pagett for the 
twentieth time, staring long and intently at 
the grey feathering of the tamarisks. 

“One portion of India only. It’s very much 
like this for 300 miles in every direction. By 
the way, now that you have rested a little—I 
wouldn’t ask the old question before—what 
d’you think of the country ?” 

“°Tis the most pervasive country that ever 
yet was seen. I acquired several pounds of 
your country coming up from Karachi. The 
air is heavy with it, and for miles and miles 
along that distressful eternity of rail there’s 
no horizon to show where the air and earth 
separate.” 

“Ves. It isn’t easy to see truly or far in In- 
dia. But you had a decent passage out, hadn’t 
you?” ) 

“Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-In- 
dian may be unsympathetic about one’s politi- 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 187 


cal views; but he has reduced ship life to 
a science.” 

“The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, 
and if he’s wise he won’t be in a hurry to be 
adopted by your party grandmothers. But 
how were your companions unsympathetic?” 

“Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a 
judge somewhere in this country it seems, and 
a capital partner at whist by the way, and 
when I wanted to talk to him about the prog- 
ress of India in a political sense (Orde hid a 
grin, which might or might not have been 
sympathetic), the National Congress move- 
ment, and other things in which, as a Member 
of Parliament, I’m of course interested, he 
shifted the subject, and when I once cornered 
him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: 
‘That’s all Tommy Rot. Come and have a 
game at Bull.’ You may laugh; but that isn’t 
the way to treat a great and important ques- 
tion; and, knowing who I was, well, I thought 
it rather rude, don’t you know; and yet Daw- 
lishe is a thoroughly good fellow.” 

“Yes; he’s a friend of mine, and one of the 
straightest men I know. I suppose, like many 
Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give 
you any just idea of any Indian question with- 
out the documents before you, and in this case 

Kip. 6—G 


188 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


the documents you want are the country and 
the people.” 

“Precisely. That was why I came straight 
to you, bringing an open mind to bear on 
things. I’m anxious to know what popular 
feeling in India is really like y'know, now that 
it has wakened into political life. The Na- 
tional Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must 
have caused great excitement among the 
masses?” 

“On the contrary, nothing could be more 
tranquil than the state of popular feeling; and 
as to excitement, the people would as soon be 
excited over the ‘Rule of Three’ as over the 
Congress.” 

“Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are 
a fair judge? Isn’t the official Anglo-Indian 
naturally jealous of any external influences 
that might move the masses, and so much op- 
posed to liberal ideas, truly liberal ideas, that 
he can scarcely be expected to regard a popu- 
lar movement with fairness?” 

“What did Dawlishe say about Tommy 
Rot? Think a moment, old man. You and I 
_ were brought up together; taught by the same 
tutors, read the same books, lived the same 
life, and thought, as you may remember, in 
parallel lines. J come out here, learn new lan- 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 189 


guages, and work among new races; while, 
you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why 
should I change my mind—our mind—because 
I change my sky? Why should I and the few 
hundred Englishmen in my service become un- 
reasonable, prejudiced fossils, while you and 
your newer friends alone remain bright and 
open-minded? You surely don’t fancy civil- 
ians are members of a Primrose League?” 

“Of course not, but the mere position of an 
English official gives him a point of view 
which cannot but bias his mind on this ques- 
tion.”” Pagett moved his knee up and down a 
little uneasily as he spoke. 

“That sounds plausible enough, but, like 
more plausible notions on Indian matters, I be- 
lieve it’s a mistake. You'll find when you 
come to consult the unofficial Briton that our 
fault, as a class—I speak of the civilian now— 
is rather to magnify the progress that has been 
made toward liberal institutions. It is of Eng- 
lish origin, such as it is, and the stress of our 
work since the Mutiny—only thirty years ago 
—has been in that direction. No, I think you 
will get no fairer or more dispassionate view 
of the Congress business than such men as I 
can give you. But I may as well say at once 
that those who know most of India, from the 


190 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our 
scarcely begun experiment makes in England.” 

“But surely the gathering together of Con- 
gress delegates is of itself a new thing.” 

“There’s nothing new under the sun. 
When Europe was a jungle half Asia flocked 
to the canonical conferences of Buddhism; 
and for centuries the people have gathered at 
Puri, Hurdwar, Trimbak, and Benares in im- 
mense numbers. A great meeting, what you 
call a mass meeting, is really one of the oldest 
and most popular of Indian institutions. In 
the case of the Congress meetings, the only no- 
table fact is that the priests of the altar are 
British, not Buddhist, Jain or Brahmanical, 
and that the whole thing is a British contriv- 
ance kept alive by the efforts of Messrs. 
Hume, Eardley, Norton, and Digby.” 

“You mean to say, then, it’s not a spontane- 
ous movement?” 

“What movement was ever spontaneous in 
any true sense of the word? ‘This seems to be 
more factitious than usual. You seem to 
know a great deal about it; try it by the touch- 
stone of subscriptions, a coarse but fairly 
trustworthy criterion, and there is scarcely the 
color of money in it. The delegates write 
from England that they are out of pocket for 


OF PAGETT, MP. 191 


working expenses, railway fares, and station- 
ery—the mere pasteboard and scaffolding of 
their show. It is, in fact, collapsing from 
mere financial inanition.”’ 

“But you cannot deny that the people of In- 
dia, who are, perhaps, too poor to subscribe, 
are mentally and morally moved by the agi- 
tation,” Pagett insisted. 

“That is precisely what I do deny. The na- 
tive side of the movement is the work of 
a limited class, a microscopic minority, as 
Lord Dufferin described it, when compared 
with the people proper, but still a very interest- 
ing class, seeing that it is of our own creation. 
It is composed almost entirely of those of the 
literary or clerkly castes who have received an 
English education.” 

“Surely that’s a very important class. Its 
members must be the ordained leaders of pop- 
ular thought.” 

“Anywhere else they might be leaders, but 
they have no social weight in this topsy-turvy 
land, and though they have been employed in 
clerical work for generations they have no 
practical knowledge of affairs. A ship’s clerk 
is a useful person, but he is scarcely the cap- 
tain; and an orderly-room writer, however 
smart he may be, is not the colonel. You see, 


192 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS © 


the writer class in India has never till now as- 
pired to anything like command. It wasn’t al- 
lowed to. The Indian gentleman, for thou- 
sands of years past, has resembled Victor 
Hugo’s noble: 


*Un vrai sire 
Chatelain 
Laisse ecrire 
Le vilain. 

Sa main digne 

Quand il signe 
Egratigne 
Le velin.’ 


And the little egratignures he most likes to 
make have been scored pretty deeply by the 
sword.” | 

“But this is childish and medieval non- 
sense !” 

“Precisely; and from your, or rather our, 
point of view the pen is mightier than the 
sword. In this country it’s otherwise. The 
fault lies in our Indian balances, not yet ad- 
justed to civilized weights and measures.” 

“Well, at all events, this literary class rep- 
resents the natural aspirations and wishes of 
the people at large, though it may not exactly 
lead them, and, in spite of all you say, Orde, I 
defy you to find a really sound English Radi- 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 193 


cal who would not sympathize with those as- 
pirations.” 

Pagett spoke with some warmth, and he had 
scarcely ceased when a well-appointed dog- 
cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde 
rose saying’: 

“Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge 
T neglect so diligently, come to talk about ac- 
counts, I suppose.’ 

As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pag- 
ett also rose, saying with the trained effusion 
born of much practice: 

“But this is also my friend, my old and val- 
ued friend Edwards. I’m delighted to see you. 
I knew you were in India, but not exactly 
where.” 

“Then it isn’t accounts, Mr. Edwards,” said 
Orde, cheerily. 

“Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was com- 
ing, and as our works were closed for the New 
Year I thought I would drive over and see 
him.” 

“A very happy thought. Mr. Edwards, 
you may not know, Orde, was a leading mem- 
ber of our Radical Club at Switchton when I 
was beginning political life, and I owe much to 
his exertions. There’s no. pleasure like meet- 
ing an old friend, except, perhaps, making a 


1904 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


new one. I suppose, Mr. Edwards, you stick 
to the good old cause?” 

“Well, you see, sir, things are different out 
here. There’s precious little one can find to 
say against the Government, which, was the 
main of our talk at home, and them that do say 
things are not the sort o’ people a man who re- 
spects himself would like to be mixed up with. 
There are no politics, in a manner of speaking, 
in India. It’s all work.” 

“Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. 
Why I have come all the way from England 
just to see the working of this great National 
movement.” | 

“T don’t know where you're going to find 
the nation as moves to begin with, and then 
you'll be hard put to it to find what they are 
moving about. It’s like this, sir,” said Ed- 
wards, who had not quite relished being called 
“my good friend.” “They haven’t got any 
grievance—nothing to hit with, don’t you see, 
sir; and then there’s not much to hit against, 
because the Government is more like a kind of 
general Providence, directing an old-estab- 
lished state of things, than that at home, 
where there’s something new thrown down for 
us to fight about every three months.” 

“You are probably, in your workshops, full 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 195 


of English mechanics, out of the way of learn- 
ing what the masses think.” 

“T don’t know so much about that. There 
are four of us English foremen, and between 
seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, 
carpenters, painters, and such like.” 

“And they are full of the Congress, of 
course ?”’ 

“Never hear a word of it from year’s end to 

year’s end, and I speak the talk, too. But I 

wanted to ask how things are going on at 

home—old Tyler and Brown and the rest?” 

“We will speak of them presently, but your 
account of the indifference of your men sur- 
prises me almost as much as your own. I fear 
you are a backslider from the good old doc- 
trine, Edwards.” Pagett spoke as one who 
mourned the death of a near relative. 

“Not a bit, sir, but I should be if I took up 
with a parcel of baboos, pleaders, and school- 
boys, as never did a day’s work in their lives, 
and couldn’t if they tried. And if you was to 
poll us English railway men, mechanics, 
trades-people, and the like of that all up and 
down the country from Peshawur to Calcutta, 
you would find us mostly in a tale together. 
And yet you know we're the same English you 
pay some respect to at home at ‘lection time, 


196 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


and we have the pull o’ knowing something 
about it.” 

“This is very curious, but you will let me 
come and see you, and perhaps you will kindly 
show me the railway works, and we will talk 
things over at leisure. And about all old 
friends and old times,” added Pagett, detect- 
ing with quick insight a look of disappoint- 
ment in the mechanic’s face. . 

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted 
his dog-cart and drove off. 

“It’s very disappointing,” said the Member 
to Orde, who, while his friend discoursed 
with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle 
of sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, 
brought to him by a Chuprassee. 

“Don’t let it trouble you, old chap,” said 
Orde, sympathetically. “Look here a moment, 
here are some sketches by the man who made 
the carved wood screen you admired so much 
in the dining-room, and wanted a copy of, and 
the artist himself is here too.” 

“A native?” said Pagett. 

“Of course,’ was the reply, “Bishen Singh 
is his name, and he has two brothers to help 
him. When there is an important job to do, 
the three go into partnership, but they spend 
most of their time and all their money in liti- 


OF PAGETT, MP. 197 


gation over an inheritance, and I’m afraid they 
are getting involved. Thoroughbred Sikhs of 
the old rock, obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and 
cunning, but good men for all that. Here is 
Bishen Singh—shall we ask jim about the 
Congress ?””’ 

But Bishen Singh, who approached with a 
respectful salaam had never heard of it, and 
he listened with a puzzled face and obviously 
feigned interest to Orde’s account of its aims 
and objects, finally shaking his vast white tur- 
ban with great significance when he learned 
that it was promoted by certain pleaders 
named by Orde, and by educated natives. He 
began with labored respect to explain how he 
was a poor man with no concern in such mat- 
ters, which were all under the control of God, 
but presently broke out of Urdu into familiar 
Punjabi, the mere sound of which had a rustic 
smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, 
as he denounced the wearers of white coats, 
the jugglers with words who filched his field 
from him, the men whose backs were never 
bowed in honest work; and poured ironical 
scorn on the Bengali. He and one of his 
brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work 
there had Bengali carpenters given to them as 
assistants. 


198 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


“Those carpenters!” said Bishen Singh. 
“Black apes were more efficient workmates, 
and as for the Bengali babu—tchick!”’ The 
guttural click needed no interpretation, but 
Orde translated the rest, while Pagett gazed 
with interest at the wood-carver. 

“Fe seems to have a most illiberal prejudice 
against the Bengali,” said the M.P. 

“Yes, it’s very sad that for ages outside Ben- 
gal there should be so bitter a prejudice. Pride 
of race, which also means race-hatred, is the 
plague and curse of India and it spreads far,” 
Orde pointed with his riding-whip to the large 
map of India on the veranda wall. 

“See! I begin with the North,” said he. 
“There’s the Afghan, and, as a highlander, he 
despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan—with 
the exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as 
cordially as the Sikh hates him. The Hindu 
loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput— 
that’s a little lower down across this yellow 
blot of desert—has a strong objection, to put 
it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, 
poisonously hates the Afghan. Let’s go 
North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody 
I’ve mentioned. Very good, we'll take less 
warlike races. The cultivator of Northern 
India domineers over the man in the next 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 199 


province, and the Behari of the Northwest 
ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on 
that point. I’m giving you merely the rough- 
est possible outlines of the facts, of course.” 

Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still 
quivering, watched the large sweep of the 
whip as it traveled from the frontier, through 
Sindh, the Punjab and Rajputana, till it 
rested by the valley of the Jumna. 

“Hate—eternal and inextinguishable hate,” 
concluded Orde, flicking the lash of the whip 
across the large map from East to West as he 
sat down. “Remember Canning’s advice to 
Lord Granville. ‘Never write or speak of In- 
dian things without looking at a map.’ ” 

Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. 
“And the race-hatred is only a part of it. 
What’s really the matter with Bishen Singh is 
class-hatred, which, unfortunately, is even 
more intense and more widely spread. That’s 
one of the little drawbacks of caste, which 
some of your recent English writers find an 
impeccable system.” 

The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to 
the business of his craft, and his eyes shone as 
he received instructions for a carved wooden 
doorway for Pagett, which he promised should 
be splendidly executed and despatched to Eng- 


200 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


land in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, 
but in spite of Orde’s reminders, fourteen 
months elapsed before the work was finished. 
Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, re- 
luctant to take his leave, and at last joining 
his hands and approaching Orde with bated 
breath and whispering humbleness, said he had 
a petition to make. Orde’s face suddenly lost 
all trace of expression. ‘Speak on, Bishen 
Singh,” said he, and the carver in a whining 
tone explained that his case against his broth- 
ers was fixed for hearing before a native judge 
and—here he dropped his voice still lower till 
he was summarily stopped by Orde, who 
sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic 
“Begone!” 

Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of dis- 
composure, salaamed respectfully to the 
friends and departed. 

Pagett looked inquiry; Orde with complete 
recovery of his usual urbanity, replied: “It’s 
nothing, only the old story, he wants his case 
to be tried by an English judge—they all do 
that—but when he began to hint that the other 
side were in improper relations with the native 
judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the 
man he wanted to make insinuations about, 
may not be very bright; but he’s as honest as 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 201 


daylight on the bench. But that’s just what 
one can’t get a native to believe.” 

“Do you really mean to say these people pre- 
fer to have their cases tried by English 
judges?” 

“Why, certainly.”’ 

Pagett drew a long breath. “I didn’t know 
that before.’’ At this point a phaeton entered 
the compound, and Orde rose with “Confound 
it, there’s old Rasul Ali Khan come to pay one 
of his tiresome duty calls. I’m afraid we shall 
never get through our little Congress discus- 
sion.” 

Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the 
_ gtave formalities of a visit paid by a punctili- 
ous old Mohammedan gentleman to an Indian 
official; and much impressed by the distinc- 
tion of manner and fine appearance of the Mo- 
hammedan landholder. When the exchange 
of polite banalities came to a pause, he ex- 
pressed a wish to learn the courtly visitor’s 
opinion of the National Congress. 

Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a 
smile which even Mohammedan politeness 
could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ali 
Khan intimated that he knew nothing about it 
and cared still less. It was a kind of talk en- 
couraged by the Government for some myste- 


202 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


tious purpose of its own and for his own part 
he wondered and held his peace. 

Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and 
wished to have the old gentleman’s opinion on 
the propriety of managing all Indian affair 
on the basis of an elective system. | 

Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain 
the visitor was bored and_ bewildered. 
Frankly, he didn’t think much of committees: 
they had a Municipal Committee at Lahore 
and had elected a menial servant, an orderly, 
as a member. He had been informed of this 
on good authority, and after that, committees 
had ceased to interest him. But all was ac- 
cording to the rule of Government, and, please 
God, it was all for the best. 

“What an old fossil it is!” cried Pagett, as 
Orde returned from seeing his guest to the 
door; “just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo 
of Spain. What does he really think of the 
Congress after all, and of the elective system?” 

“Hates it all like poison. When you are 
sure of a majority, election is a fine system; 
but you can scarcely expect the Mohammedans, 
the most masterful and powerful minority in 
the country, to contemplate their own extinc- 
tion with joy. The worst of it is that he and 
his co-religionists, who are many, and the 


OF PAGETT, M.P. — 203 


landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are 
frightened and put out by this election business 
and by the importance we have bestowed on 
lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who 
have, up to now, been in abject submission to 
them. They say little, but after all they are 
the most important fagots in the great bundle 
of communities, and all the glib bunkum in 
the world would not pay for their estrange- 
ment. They have controlled the land.” 

“But I am assured that experience of local 
self-government in your municipalities has 
been most satisfactory, and when once the 
principle is accepted in your centres, don’t you 
know, it is bound to spread, and these impor- 
tant—ah’m—people of yours would learn it 
like the rest. I see no difficulty at all,” and the 
smooth lips closed with the complacent snap 
habitual to Pagett, M.P., the ‘‘man of cheerful 
yesterdays and confident to-morrows.” 

Orde looked at him with a dreary smile. 

“The privilege of election has been most re- 
luctantly withdrawn from scores of munici- 
palities, others have had to be summarily sup- 
pressed, and, outside the Presidency towns, 
the actual work done has been badly per- 
formed. This is of less moment, perhaps—it 
only sends up the local death-rates—than the 


204 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


fact that the public interest in municipal elec- 
tions, never very strong, has waned, and is 
waning, in spite of careful nursing on the part 
of Government servants.” 

“Can you explain this lack of interest?” 
said Pagett, putting aside the rest of Orde’s 
remarks. 

“You may find a ward of the key in the fact 
that only one in every thousand of our popu- 
lation can spell. Then they are infinitely more 
interested in religion and caste questions than 
in any sort of politics. When the business of 
mere existence is over, their minds are occu- 
pied by a series of interests, pleasures, rituals, 
superstitions, and the like, based on centuries 
of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it 
hard to conceive of people absolutely devoid of 
curiosity, to whom the book, the daily paper, 
and the printed speech are unknown, and you 
would describe their life as blank. That’s a 
profound mistake. You are in another land, 
another century, down on the bed-rock of soci- 
ety, where the family merely, and not the com- 
munity, is all-important. The average Ori- 
ental cannot be brought to look beyond his 
clan. His life, too, is more complete and self- 
sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted 
than you might imagine. It is bovine and 


ie 5 
ee he 


OF PAGETT, M.-P. 205 


slow in some respects, but it is never empty. 
You and I are inclined to put the cart before 
the horse, and to forget that it is the man that 
is elemental, not the book. 


‘The corn and the cattle are all my care, 
And the rest is the will of God’ 


Why should such folk look up from their 1m- 
memorially appointed round of duty and inter- 
ests to meddle with the unknown and fuss with 
voting-papers. How would you, atop of all 
your interests care to conduct even one-tenth 
of your life according to the manners and cus- 
toms of the Papuans, let’s say? That’s what 
it comes to.” 

“But if they won’t take the trouble to vote, 
why do you anticipate that Mohammedans, 
proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by 
majorities of them?” 

Again Pagett disregarded the closing sen- 
tence. 

“Because, though the landholders would not 
move a finger on any purely political question, 
they could be raised in dangerous excitement 
by religious hatreds. Already the first note 
of this has been sounded by the people who are 
trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing 


206 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


question, and every year there is trouble over 
the Mohammedan Muharrum processions.” 

“But who looks after the popular rights, 
being thus unrepresented ?” 

“The Government of Her Majesty the 
Queen, Empress of India, in which, if the Con- 
gress promoters are to be believed the people 
have an implicit trust; for the Congress circu- 
lar, specially prepared for rustic comprehen- 
sion, says the movement is ‘for the remission 
of tax, the advancement of Hindustan, and the 
strengthening of the British Government. 
This paper is headed in large letters—‘May 
THE PROSPERITY OF THE EMPRESS OF INDIA 
ENDURE.’ ” ! 

“Really!” said Pagett, “that shows some 
cleverness. But there are things better worth 
imitation in our English methods of—er— 
political statement than this sort of amiable 
fraud,” 

“Anyhow,” resumed Orde, “you perceive 
that not a word is said about elections and the 
elective principle, and the reticence of the Con- 
gress promoters here shows they are wise in 
their generation.” | 

“But the elective principle must triumph in 
the end, and the little difficulties you seem to 
anticipate would give way on the introduction 


"al 


OF PAGETT, MP. 207 


of a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite 
extension.” 

“But is it possible to devise a scheme which, 
always assuming that the people took any in- 
terest in it, without enormous expense, ruin- 
ous dislocation of the administration and dan- 
ger to the public peace, can satisfy the aspira- 
tions of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet 
safeguard the interests of the Mohammedans, 
the landed and wealthy classes, the Conserva- 
tive Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, 
Rajputs, native Christians, domiciled Euro- 
peans and others, who are each important and 
powerful in their way?” 

Pagett’s attention, however, was diverted to 
the gate, where a group of cultivators stood 
in apparent hesitation. 

“Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove!— 
come straight out of Raffaele’s cartoons,” said 
the M.P., with the fresh appreciation of a 
newcomer. 

Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impa- 
tiently toward the villagers, and their leader, 
handing his long staff to one of his compan- 
ions, advanced to the house. 

“Tt is old Jelloo, the Lumberdar, or head- 
man of Pind Sharkot, and a very intelligent 
man for a villager.” 


208 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


The Jat farmer had removed his shoes ana 
stood smiling on the edge of the veranda. His 
strongly marked features glowed with russet 
bronze, and his bright eyes gleamed under 
deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong expos- 
ure to sunshine. His beard and moustache 
streaked with grey swept from bold cliffs of 
brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees 
drawn by Michael Angelo, and strands of long 
black hair mingled withthe irregularly piled 
wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery 
of stout blue cotton cloth thrown over his 
broad shoulders and girt round his narrow 
loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculp- 
tured folds, and he would have made a superb 
model for an artist in search of a patriarch. 

Orde greeted him cordially, and after a po- 
lite pause the countryman started off with a 
long story told with impressive earnestness. 


Orde listened and smiled, interrupting the - 


speaker at times to argue and reason with him 
in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, 
and finally checking the flux of words was 
about to dismiss him, when Pagett suggested 
that he should be asked about the National 
Congress. 

But Jelloo had never heard of it. He was 
a poor man, and such things, by the favor of 
his Honor, did not concern him. 


Oe 


OF PAGETT, MP. 209 


“What's the matter with your big friend 
that he was so terribly in earnest?” asked Pag- 
ett, when he had left. 

“Nothing much, He wants the blood of the 
people in the next village, who have had small- 
pox and cattle plague prettly badly, and by the 
help of a wizard, a currier, and several pigs 
have passed it on to his own village. “Wants 
to know if they can’t be run in for this awful 
crime. It seems they made a dreadful chari- 
vari at the village boundary, threw a quantity 
of spell-bearing objects over the border, a 
buffalo’s skull and other things; then branded 
a chamér—what you would call a currier—on 
his hinder parts and drove him and a number 
of pigs over into Jelloo’s village. Jelloo says 
he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard 
directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, 
has been guilty of theft, arson, cattle-killing, 
perjury and murder, but would prefer to have 
him punished for bewitching them and inflict- 
ing smallpox.” ‘ 

“And how on earth did you answer such a 
lunatic?” 

“Tunatic! The old fellow is as sane as you 
or I; and he has some ground of complaint 
against those Sansis. I asked if he would like 
a native superintendent of police with some 


Pa 


210 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


men to make inquiries, but he objected on the 
grounds the police were rather worse than 
smallpox and criminal tribes put together.” 

“Criminal tribes—er—I don’t ate under- 
stand,” said Pagett. 

“We have in India many tribes of people 
who in the slack anti-British days became rob- 
bers, in various kind, and preyed on the peo- 
ple. They are being restrained and reclaimed 
little by little, and in time will become useful 
citizens, but they still cherish hereditary tradi- 
tions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal 
with. By the way what about the political 
rights of these folk under your schemes? The 
country people call them vermin, but I suppose 
they would be electors with the rest.” 

“Nonsense—special provision would be 
made for them in a well-considered electoral 
scheme, and they would doubtless be treated 
with fitting severity,” said Pagett, with a mag- 
isterial air. | 

“Severity, yes—but whether it would be fit- 
ting is doubtful. Even those poor devils have 
rights. and, after all, they only practice what 
they have been taught.” 

“But criminals, Orde!” 

“Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of 
crime, gods and godlings of crime, and a hun- 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 211 


dred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puz- 
zling, isn’t it?’ 

“It’s simply dreadful. They ought to be put 
down at once. Are there many of them?” 

“Not more than about sixty thousand in this 
province, for many of the tribes broadly de- 
scribed as criminal are really vagabond and 
criminal only on occasion, while others are 
being settled and reclaimed. They are of 
great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the 
golden, glorious Aryan past of Max Miller, 
Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift phil- 
osophers.”’ 

An orderly brought a card to Orde, who 
took it with a movement of irritation at the in- 
terruption, and handed it to Pagett; a large 
card with a ruled border in red ink, and in the 
centre in schoolboy copper plate, Mr. Dina 
Nath. “Give salaam,” said the civilian, and 
there entered in haste a slender youth, clad in 
closely fitting coat of grey homespun, tight 
trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small 
black velvet cap. His thin cheek twitched, and 
his eyes wandered restlessly, for the young 
man was evidently nervous and uncomfortable, 
though striving to assume a free and easy air. 

“Your honor may perhaps remember me,” 
he said in English, and Orde scanned him 
keenly. 


212 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


“I know your face somehow. You belonged 
to the Shershah district I think, when I was in 
charge there?” 

“Yes, sir, my father is writer at Shershah, 
and your honor gave me a prize when I was 
first in the Middle School examination five 
years ago. Since then I have prosecuted my 
studies, and I am now second year’s student in 
the Mission College.” 

“Of course: you are Kedar Nath’s son—the 
boy who said he liked geography better than 
play or sugar cakes, and I didn’t believe you. 
How is your father getting on?” 

“He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his 
circumstances are depressed, and he also is 
down on his luck.” 

“You learn English idioms at the Mission 
College, it seems.” 

“Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my 
father ordered me to ask your honor to say a 
word for him to the present incumbent of your 
honor’s shoes, the latchet of which he is not 
worthy to open, and who knows not Joseph; 
for things are different at Shershah now, and 
my father wants promotion.” 

“Your father is a good man, and I will do 
what I can for him.” 

At this point a telegram was handed to 


OF PAGETT, MP. 213 


Orde, who, after glancing at it, said he must 
leave his young friend whom he introduced to 
Pagett, “a member of the English House of 
Commons who wishes to learn about India.”’ 

Orde had scarcely retired with his telegram 
when Pagett began: 

“Perhaps you can tell me something of the 
National Congress movement ?” 

“Sir, it is the greatest movement of mod- 
ern times, and one in which all educated men 
like us must join. All our students are for the 
Congress.” 

“Excepting, I suppose, Mohammedans, and 
the Christians?’ said Pagett, quick to use his 
recent instruction. 

“These are some mere exceptions to the uni- 
versal rule.”’ | 

“But the people outside the College, the 
working classes, the agriculturists; your father 
and mother, for instance.” 

“My mother,” said the young man, with a 
visible effort to bring himself to pronounce the 
word, “‘has no ideas, and my father is not ag- 
riculturist, nor working class; he is of the 
Kayeth caste; but he had not the advantage of 
a collegiate education, and he does not know 
much of the Congress. It is a movement for 
the educated young-man”—connecting adjec- 
tive and noun in a sort of vocal hyphen. 


214 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


“Ah, yes,” said Pagett, feeling he was a~ 


little off the rails, ‘‘ and what are the benefits 
you expect to gain by it?” : 

“Oh, sir, everything. England owes its 
greatness to Parliamentary institutions, and 
we should at once gain the same high position 
in scale of nations. Sir, we wish to have the 
sciences, the arts, the manufactures, the indus- 
trial factories, with steam engines, and other 
motive powers, and public meetings, and de- 
bates. Already we have a debating club in 
connection with the college, and elect a Mr. 
Speaker. Sir, the progress must come. You 
also are a Member of Parliament and worship 
the great Lord Ripon,” said the youth, breath- 
lessly, and his black eyes flashed as he finished 
his commaless sentences. 

“Well,” said Pagett, drily, “it has not yet 
occurred to me to worship his Lordship, al- 


though I believe he is a very worthy man, and © 


I am not sure that England owes quite all the 
things you name to the House of Commons. 
You see, my young friend, the growth of a 
nation like ours is slow, subject to many influ- 
ences, and if you have read your history 
aright’— 

“Sir, I know it all—all! Norman Conquest, 
Magna Charta, Runnymede, Reformation, Tu- 


ee ne ee eee i eee . 


: 
Z 
\ 
; 
iS | 
j 
* 
i 

: 


OF PAGETT, MP. 215 


dors, Stuarts, Mr. Milton and Mr. Burke, and 
I have read something of Mr. Herbert Spencer 
and Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’ Reynold’s 
“Mysteries of the Court,’ and’”— 

Pagett felt like one who had pulled the 
string of a shower-bath unawares, and has- 
tened to stop the torrent with a question as to 
what particular grievances of the people of In- 
dia the attention of an elected assembly should 
be first directed. But young Mr. Dina Nath 
was slow to particularize. There were many, 
very many demanding consideration. Mr. 
Pagett would like to hear of one or two typical 
examples. The Repeal of the Arms Act was 
at last named, and the student learned for the 
first time that a license was necessary before 
an Englishman could carry a gun in England. 
Then natives of India ought to be allowed to 
become Volunteer Riflemen if they chose, and 
the absolute equality of the Oriental with his 
European fellow-subject in civil status should 
be proclaimed on principle, and the Indian 
Army should be considerably reduced. The 
student was not, however, prepared with an- 
swers to Mr. Pagett’s mildest questions on 
these points, and he returned to vague gener-. 
alities, leaving the M.P. so much impressed 
with the crudity of his views that he was glad 


216 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


on Orde’s return to say good-bye to his “very 
interesting’ young friend. 

“What do you think of young India?’ asked 
Orde. 

“Curious, very curious—and callow.” 

“And yet,” the civilian replied, “one can 
scarcely help sympathizing with him for his 
mere youth’s sake. The young orators of the 
Oxford Union arrived at the same conclusions 
and showed doubtless just the same enthusi- 
asm. If there were any political analogy be- 
tween India and England, if the thousand 
races of this Empire were one, if there were 
any chance even of their learning to speak one 
language, if, in short, India were a Utopia of © 
the debating-room, and not a real land, this 
kind of talk might be worth listening to, but it 
is all based on false analogy and ignorance of 
the facts.” 

“But he is a native and knows the facts.” 

“He is a sort of English schoolboy, but mar- 
ried three years, and the father of two weak- 
lings, and knows less than most English 
schoolboys. You saw all he is and knows, and 
such ideas as he has acquired are directly hos- 
tile to the most cherished convictions of the 
vast majority of the people.” 

“But what does he mean by saying he is a 


OF PAGETT, MP. 217 


student of a mission college. Is he a Chris- 
tian ?” 

“He meant just what he said, and he is not 
a Christian, nor ever will he be. Good people 
in America, Scotland, and England, most of 
whom would never dream of collegiate educa- 
tion for their own sons, are pinching them- 
selves to bestow it in pure waste on Indian 
youths. Their scheme is an oblique, subter- 
ranean attack on heathenism; the theory being 
that with the jam of secular education, leading 
to a University degree, the pill of moral or re- 
ligious instruction may be coaxed down the 
heaten gullet.” 

“But does it succeed: do they make con- 
verts ?” 

“They make no converts, for the subtle Ori- 
ental swallows the jam and rejects the pill; 
but the mere example of the sober, righteous, 
and godly lives of the principals and profes- 
sors, who are most excellent and devoted men, 
must have a certain moral value. Yet, as 
Lord Lansdowne pointed out the other day, 
the market is dangerously overstocked with 
graduates of our Universities who look for 
employment in the administration. An im- 
mense number are employed, but year by year 
the college mills grind out increasing lists of 


218 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


youths foredoomed to failure and disappoint- 
ment, and meanwhile, trade, manufactures, 
and the industrial arts are neglected, and in 
fact regarded with contempt by our new lit- 
erary mandarins in posse.” 

“But our young friend said he wanted 
steam-engines and factories,’ said Pagett. 

“Ves, he would like to direct such concerns. 
He wants to begin at the top, for manual labor 
is held to be discreditable, and he would never 
defile his hands by the apprenticeship which 
the architects, engineers, and manufacturers 
of England cheerfully undergo; and he would 
be aghast to learn that the leading names of in- 
dustrial enterprise in England belonged a gen- 
eration or two since, or now belong, to men 
who wrought with their own hands. And, 
though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he re- 
fuses to see that the Indian manufacturer of 
the future will be the despised workman of the 
present. It was proposed, for example, a few 
weeks ago, that a certain municipality in this 
‘ province should establish an elementary tech- 
nical school for the sons of workmen. The 
stress of the opposition to the plan came from 
a pleader who owed all he had to a college edu- 
cation bestowed on him gratis by Government 
and missions. You would have fancied some 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 219 


fine old crusted Tory squire of the last gener- 
ation was speaking. ‘These people,’ he said, 
‘want no education, for they learn their trades 
from their fathers, and to teach a workman’s 
son the elements of mathematics and physical 
science would give him ideas above his busi- 
ness. They must be kept in their place, and it 
is idle to imagine that there is any science 
in wood or iron work.’ And he carried his 
point. But the Indian workman will rise in 
‘the social scale in spite of the new literary 
caste.” 

“In England we have scarcely begun to real- 
ize that there is an industrial class in this coun- 
try, yet, I suppose, the example of men, like 
Edwards, for instance, must tell,’’ said Pagett, 
thoughtfully. 

“That you shouldn’t know much about it is 
natural enough, for there are but few sources 
of information. India in this, as in other re- 
spects, is like a badly kept ledger—not written 
up to date. And men like Edwards are, in 
reality, missionaries, who by precept and ex- 
ample are teaching more lessons than they 
know. Only a few, however, of their crowds 
_ of subordinates seem to care to try to emulate 
them, and aim at individual advancement; the 
rest drop into the ancient Indian caste groove.” 

“How do you mean?” asked Pagett. 

Kip. 6—H 


220 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


“Well, it is found that the new railway and 
factory workmen, the fitter, the smith, the en- 
gine-driver, and the rest are already forming 
separate hereditary castes. You may notice this 
down at Jamalpur in Bengal, one of the oldest 
railway centres; and at other places, and in 
other industries, they are following the same 
inexorable Indian law.” 

“Which means?”—queried Pagett. 

“It means that the rooted habit of the peo- 
ple is to gather in small self-contained, self- 
sufficing family groups with no thought or 
care for any interests but their own—a habit 
which is scarcely compatible with the right ac- 
 ceptation of the elective principle.” 

“Yet you must admit, Orde, that though 
our young friend was not able to expound the 
faith that is in him, your Indian army is too 
big.” 

“Not nearly big enough for its main pur- 
pose. And, as a side issue, there are certain 
powerful minorities of fighting folk whose in- 
terests an Asiatic Government is bound to con- 
sider. Arms is as much a means of livelihood 
as civil employ under Government and law. 
And it would be a heavy strain on British bay- 
onets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis, Ro- 
hillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pathans, and 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 221 


Gurkhas to abide by the decisions of a numeri- 
cal majority opposed to their interests. Leave 
the ‘numerical majority’ to itself without the 
British bayonets—a flock of sheep might as 
reasonably hope to manage a troop of collies.”’ 
“This complaint about excessive growth of 
the army is akin to another contention of the 
Congress party. They protest against the mal- 
versation of the whole of the moneys raised by 
additional taxes as a Famine Insurance Fund 
to other purposes. You must be aware that 
this special Famine Fund has all been spent on 
frontier roads and defences and strategic rail- 
way schemes as a protection against Russia.’’ 
“But there was never a special famine fund 
raised by special taxation and put by as in a 
box. No sane administrator would dream of 
such a thing. In a time of prosperity a finance 
minister, rejoicing in a margin, proposed to 
annually apply a million and a half to the con- 
struction of railways and canals for the pro- 
tection of districts liable to scarcity, and to the 
reduction of the annual loans for public works. 
But times were not always prosperous, and the 
finance minister had to choose whether he 
would hang up the insurance scheme for a 
year or impose fresh taxation. When a 
farmer hasn’t got the little surplus he hoped to 


222 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


have for buying a new wagon and draining 
a low-lying field corner, you don’t accuse him 
of malversation, if he spends what he has on 
the necessary work of the rest of his farm.” 

A clatter of hoofs was heard, and Orde 
looked up with vexation, but his brow cleared 
as a horseman halted under the porch. 

“Hello, Orde! just looked in to ask if you 
are coming to polo on Tuesday: we want you 
badly to help to crumple up the Krab Bokhar 
team.” 

Orde explained that he had to go out into 
the District, and while the visitor complained 
that though good men wouldn’t play, duffers 
were always keen, and that his side would 
probably be beaten, Pagett rose to look at his 
mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a cu- 
rious lyrelike incurving of the ears. “Quite a 
little thoroughbred in all other respects,” said 
the M.P., and Orde presented Mr. Reginald 
Burke, Manager of the Sind and Sialkote 
Bank to his friend. 

“Yes, she’s as good as they make ’em, and 
she’s all the female I possess and spoiled in 
consequence, aren’t you, old girl?” said Burke, 
patting the mare’s glossy neck as she backed 
and plunged. eae 

“Mr. Pagett,” said Orde, “has been asking 


OF PAGETT, M.P. — 223 


me about the Congress. What is your opin- 
ion?” Burke turned to the M.P. with a frank 
smile. 

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, sir, I 
should say, ‘Damn the Congress,’ but then I’m 
no politician, but only a business man.” 

“You find it a tiresome subject ?” 

“Yes, it’s all that, and worse than that, for 
this kind of agitation is anything but whole- 
some for the country.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Tt would be a long job to explain, and Sara 
here won’t stand, but you know how sensitive 
capital is, and how timid investors are. All 
this sort of rot is likely to frighten them, and 
we can’t afford to frighten them. The passen- 
gers aboard an ocean steamer don’t feel reas- 
sured when the ship’s way is stopped, and they 
hear the workmen’s hammers tinkering at the 
engines down below. The old Ark’s going on 
all right as she is, and only wants quiet and 
room to move. Them’s my sentiments, and 
those of some other people who have to do 
with money and business.” 

“Then you are a thick-and-thin supporter 
of the Government as it is.” 

“Why, no! The Indian Government is 
much too timid with its money—like an old 


224 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


maiden aunt of mine—always in a funk about 
her investments. They don’t spend half 
enough on railways for instance, and they are 
slow in a general way, and ought to be made 
to sit up in all that concerns the encourage- 
ment of private enterprise, and coaxing out 
into use the millions of capital that lie dor- 
mant in the country.” 

The mare was dancing with impatience, and 
Burke was evidently anxious to be off, so the 
men wished him good-bye. 

“Who is your genial friend who condemns 
both Congress and Government in a breath?” 
asked Pagett, with an amused smile. 

“Just now he is Reggie Burke, keener on 
polo than on anything else, but if you go to the 
Sind and Sialkote Bank to-morrow you would 
find Mr. Reginald Burke a very capable man 
of business, known and liked by an immense 
constituency North and South of this.” 

“Do you think he is right about the Govern- 
ment’s want of enterprise >” 

“I should hesitate to say. Better consult 
the merchants and chambers of commerce in 
Cawnpore, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. 
But though these bodies would like, as Reggie 
puts it, to make Government sit up, it is an 
elementary consideration in governing a coun- 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 225 


try like India, which must be administered for 
the benefit of the people at large, that the 
counsels of those who resort to it for the sake 
of making money should be judiciously 
weighed and not allowed to overpower the 
rest. They are welcome guests here, as a mat- 
ter of course, but it has been found best to 
restrain their influence. Thus the rights of 
plantation laborers, factory operatives, and 
the like, have been protected, and the capital- 
ist, eager to get on, has not always regarded 
Government action with favor. It is quite con- 
ceivable that under an elective system the com- 
mercial communities of the great towns might 
find means to secure majorities on labor ques- 
tions and on financial matters.” 

“They would act at least with intelligence 
and consideration.” 

“Intelligence, yes; but as to consideration, 
who at the present moment most bitterly re- 
sents the tender solicitude of Lancashire for 
the welfare and protection of the Indian fac- 
tory operative? English and native capitalists 
running cotton mills and factories.”’ 

“But is the solitude of Lancashire in this 
matter entirely disinterested ?” 

“Tt is no business of mine to say. I merely 
indicate an example of how a powerful com- 


226 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


mercial interest might hamper a Government 
intent in the first place on the larger interests 
of humanity.”’ | 

Orde broke off to listen a moment. “There’s 
Dr. Lathrop talking to my wife in the draw- 
ing-room,” said he. 

“Surely not; that’s a lady’s voice, and if my 
ears don’t deceive me, an American.” 

“Exactly, Dr. Eva McCreery Lathrop, chief 
of the new Women’s Hospital here, and a very 
good fellow forbye. Good-morning, Doctor,” 
he said, as a graceful figure came out on the 
veranda, “you seem to be in trouble. I hope 
Mrs. Orde was able to help you.” 

“Your wife is real kind and good, I always 
come to her when I’m in a fix, but I fear it’s 
more than comforting I want.” 

“You work too hard and wear yourself 
out,’ said Orde, kindly. “Let me introduce 
my friend, Mr. Pagett, just fresh from home, 
and anxious to learn his India. You could 
tell him something of that more important half 
of which a mere man knows so little.” 

“Perhaps I could if I’d any heart to do it, 
but I’m in trouble, I’ve lost a case that was 
doing well, through nothing in the world but 
inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun 
to trust. And when I spoke only a small piece 


a ee el 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 227 


of my mind she collapsed in a whining heap 
on the floor. It is hopeless!” 

The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the 
lady doctor were dim. Recovering herself she 
looked up with a smile, half sad, half humor- 
ous, “And I am in a whining heap, too; but 
what phase of Indian life are you particularly 
interested in, sir?” 

“Mr. Pagett intends to study the political 
aspect of things and the possibility of bestow- 
ing electoral institutions on the people.” 

“Wouldn’t it be as much to the purpose to 
bestow point-lace collars on them? They need 
many things more urgently than votes. Why 
it’s like giving a bread-pill for a broken leg.” 

“Er—I don’t quite follow,” said Pagett, un- 
easily. 

“Well, what’s the matter with this country 
is not in the least political, but an all round 
entanglement of physical, social, and moral 
evils and corruptions, all more or less due to 
the unnatural treatment of women. You can’t 
gather figs from thistles, and so long as the 
system of infant marriage, the prohibition of 
the remarriage of widows, the lifelong impris- 
onment of wives and mothers in a worse than 
penal confinement, and the withholding from 
them of any kind of education or treatment as 


228 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


rational beings continues, the country can’t 
advance a step. Half of it is morally dead, 
and worse than dead, and that’s just the half 
from which we have a right to look for the 
best impulses. It’s right here where the 
trouble is, and not in any political considera- 
tions whatsoever.” | 

“But do they marry so early?” said Pagett, 
vaguely. 

“The average age is seven, but thousands 
are married still earlier. One result is that 
girls of twelve and thirteen have to bear the 
burden of wifehood and motherhood, and, as 
might be expected, the rate of mortality both 
for mothers and children is terrible. Pauper- 
ism, domestic unhappiness, and a low state of 
health are only a few of the consequences of 
this. Then, when, as frequently happens, the 
boy-husband dies prematurely, his widow is 
condemned to worse than death. She may 
not re-marry, must live a secluded and de- 
spised life, a life so unnatural, that she some- 
times prefers suicide; more often she goes 
astray. You don’t know in England what 
such words as. ‘infant-marriage, baby-wife, 
girl-mother, and virgin-widow’ mean; but they 
mean unspeakable horrors here.” 

“Well, but the advanced political party here 


OF PAGETT, M.P. 229 


will surely make it their business to advocate 
social reforms as well as political ones,” said 
Pagett. 

“Very surely they will do no such thing,” 
said the lady doctor, emphatically. “I wish I 
could make you understand. Why, even of 
the funds devoted to the Marchioness of Dui- 
ferin’s organization for medical aid to the 
women of India, it was said in print and in 
speech, that they would be better spent on 
more college scholarships for men. And in 
all the advanced parties’ talk—God forgive 
them—and in all their programmes, they care- 
fully avoid all such subjects. They will talk 
about the protection of the cow, for that’s an 
ancient superstition—they can all understand 
that; but the protection of the women is a new 
and dangerous idea.” She turned to Pagett 
impulsively : 

“Vou are a member of the English Parlia- 
ment. Can you do nothing? The founda- 
tions of their life are rotten—utterly and bes- 
tially rotten. I could tell your wife things that 
I couldn’t tell you. I know the life—the inner 
life that belongs to the native, and I know 
nothing else; and believe me you might as well 
try to grow golden-rod in a mushroom-pit as 
to make anything of a people that are born and 


230 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


reared as these—these things are. The men 
talk of their rights and privileges. I have 
seen the women that bear these very men, and 
again—may God forgive the men!” 

Pagett’s eyes opened with a large wonder. 
Dr. Lathrop rose tempestuously. 

“I must be off to lecture,”’ said she, “and I’m 
sorry that I can’t show you my hospital; but 
you had better believe, sir, that it’s more nec- 
essary for India than all the elections in cre- 
ation.” 

“That’s a woman with a mission, and no 
mistake,” said Pagett, after a pause. 

“Yes; she believes in her work, and so do 
I,” said Orde. “I’ve a notion that in the end 
it will be found that the most helpful work 
done for India in this generation was wrought 
by Lady Dufferin in drawing attention—what 
work that was, by the way, even with her hus- 
band’s great name to back it !—to the needs of 
women here. In effect, native habits and be- 
liefs are an organized conspiracy against the 
laws of health and happy life—but there is 
some dawning of hope now.” 

“How d’ you account for the general indif- 
ference, then?” | 

“I suppose it’s due in part to their fatalism 
and their utter indifference to all human suf- 


OF PAGETT, MP. 231 


fering. How much do you imagine the great 
province of the Punjab with over twenty mil- 
lion people and half a score rich towns has 
contributed to the maintenance of civil dispen- 
saries last year? About seven thousand ru- 
_ pees.” 

“That’s seven hundred pounds,” said Pa- 
gett, quickly. _ 

“I wish it was,” replied Orde; “but anyway, 
it’s an absurdly inadequate sum, and shows 
one of the blank sides of Oriental character.” 

Pagett was silent for a long time. The 
question of direct and personal pain did not 
lie within his researches. He preferred to dis- 
cuss the weightier matters of the law, and con- 
tented himself with murmuring: ‘‘They’ll do 
better later on.” Then, with a rush, returning 
to his first thought: 

“But, my dear Orde, if it’s merely a class 
movement of a local and temporary character, 
how d’ you account for Bradlaugh, who is at 
least a man of sense, taking it up?” 

“I know nothing of the champion of the 
New Brahmins but what I see in the papers. I 
suppose there is something tempting in being 
hailed by a large assemblage as the representa- 
tive of the aspirations of two hundred and 

fifty millions of people. Such a man looks 


232 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


‘through all the roaring and the wreaths,’ and 


does not reflect that it is a false perspective, 


which, as a matter of fact, hides the real com- 
plex and manifold India from his gaze. He can 
scarcely be expected to distinguish between the 
ambitions of a new oligarchy and the real 
wants of the people of whom he knows noth- 
ing. But it’s strange that a professed Radical 
should come to be the chosen advocate of a 
movement which has for its aim the revival of 
an ancient tyranny. Shows how even Radi- 
calism can fall into academic grooves and miss 


the essential truths of its own creed. Believe 


me, Pagett, to deal with India you want first- 
hand knowledge and experience. I wish he 
would come anc live here for a couple of years 
or so.” 

“Is not this rather an ad hominem style of 
argument ?”’ 

“Can't help it in a case like this. Indeed, I 
am not sure you ought not to go further and 
weigh the whole character and quality and up- 
bringing of the man. You must admit that 
the monumental complacency with which he 
trotted out his ingenious little Constitution for 
India showed a strange want of imagination 
and the sense of humor.” 

“No, I don’t quite admit it,” said Pagett. 


it ntl al 


ee 


s 


OF PAGETT, M.-P. 233 


| “Well, you know him and I don’t, but that’s 
how it strikes a stranger.” He turned on his 


heel and paced the veranda thoughtfully. 
‘And, after all, the burden of the actual, daily 
unromantic toil falls on the shoulders of the 
men out here, and not on his own. He enjoys 
all the privileges of recommendation without 
responsibility, and we—well, perhaps, when 
you've seen a little more of India you'll under- 
stand. To begin with, our death rate’s five 
times higher than yours—lI speak now for the 
brutal bureaucrat—and we work on the refuse 
of worked-out cities and exhausted civiliza- 
tions, among the bones of the dead.” 

Pagett laughed. ‘‘That’s an epigrammatic 
way of putting it, Orde.” 

“Ts it? Let’s see,” said the Deputy Com- 
missioner of Amara, striding into the sun- 
shine toward a half-naked gardener potting 
roses. He took the man’s hoe, and went to a 
tain-scarped bank at the bottom of the garden. 

“Come here, Pagett,” he said, and cut at 
the sun-baked soil. After three strokes there 
rolled from under the blade of the hoe the half 
of a clanking skeleton that settled at Pagett’s 
feet in an unseemly jumble of bones. The 
M.P. drew back. 

“Our houses are built on cemeteries,” said 


234 THE ENLIGHTENMENTS 


Orde. “There are scores of thousands of 
graves within ten miles.” 

Pagett was contemplating the skull with the 
awed fascination of a man who has but little to 
do with the dead. “India’s a very curious 
place,” said he, after a pause. 

“Ah? You'll know all about it in three 
months. Come in to lunch,” said Orde. 


_ AMERICAN NOTES 


trp tend 1 


Po HE GOLDEN, GATE) 3), 


i 
AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


“Serene, indifferent to fate, 

Thou sittest at the Western Gate; 

Thou seest the white seas fold their tents, 
Oh, warder of two continents; 

Thou drawest all things, small and great, 
To thee, beside the Western Gate.” 


HIS is what Bret Harte has written of the 

great city of San Francisco, and for 

the past fortnight I have been wondering what 
made him do it. 3 

There is neither serenity nor indifference to 
be found in these parts; and evil would it be 
for the continents whose wardship were in- 
trusted to so reckless a guardian. 

Behold me pitched neck-and-crop from 
twenty days of the high seas into the whirl of 
California, deprived of any guidance, and left 
to draw my own conclusions. Protect me 
from the wrath of an outraged community if 
these letters be ever read by American eyes! 
San Francisco is a mad city—inhabited for the 
most part by perfectly insane people, whose 
women are of a remarkable beauty. 

239 


240 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


When the “City of Pekin” steamed through 
the Golden Gate, I saw with great joy that the 
blockhouse which guarded the mouth of the 
“finest harbor in the world, sir,’ could be si- 
lenced by two gunboats from Hong Kong with 
safety, comfort, and despatch. Also, there was 
not a single American vessel of war in the 
harbor. 

This may sound bloodthirsty; but remem- 
ber, I had come with a grievance upon me— 
the grievance of the pirated English books. 

Then a reporter leaped aboard, and ere I 
could gasp held me in his toils. He pumped 
me exhaustively while I was getting ashore, 
demanding of all things in the world news 
about Indian journalism. It is an awful thing 
to enter a new land with a new lie on your lips. 
I spoke the truth to the evil-minded Custom 
House man who turned my most sacred rai- 
ment on a floor composed of stable refuse and 
pine splinters; but the reporter overwhelmed 
me not so much by his poignant audacity as 
his beautiful ignorance. [I am sorry now that 
IT did not tell him more lies as I passed into a 
city of three hundred thousand white men. 
Think of it! Three hundred thousand white 
men and women gathered in one spot, walking 
upon real pavements in front of plate-glass- 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 241 


windowed shops, and talking something that 
at first hearing was not very different from 
English. It was only when I had tangled my- 
self up in a hopeless maze of small wooden 
houses, dust, street refuse, and children who 
played with empty kerosene tins, that I dis- 
covered the difference of speech. 

“You want to go to the Palace Hotel?” said 
an affable youth on a dray. “What in hell are 
you doing here, then? This is about the low- 
est ward in the city. Go six blocks north to 
corner of Geary and Markey, then walk 
around till you strike corner of Gutter and 
Sixteenth, and that brings you there.” 

I do not vouch for the literal accuracy of 
these directions, quoting but from a disordered 
memory. 

“Amen,” I said. ‘But who am I that I 
should strike the corners of such as you name? 
Peradventure they be gentlemen of repute, 
and might hit back. Bring it down to dots, 
my son.” 

I thought he would have smitten me, but he 
didn’t. He explained that no one ever used 
the word “street,” and that every one was sup- 
posed to know how the streets ran, for some- 
times the names were upon the lamps and 
sometimes they weren’t. Fortified with these 


242 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


directions, I proceeded till I found a mighty 
street, full of sumptuous buildings four and 
five stories high, but paved with rude cobble- 
stones, after the fashion of the year 1. 

Here a tram-car, without any visible means 
of support, slid stealthily behind me and nearly 
struck me in the back. This was the famous 
cable car of San Francisco, which runs by 
gripping an endless wire rope sunk in the 
ground, and of which IJ will tell you more 
anon. A hundred yards further there was a 
slight commotion in the street, a gathering to- 
gether of three or four, something that glit- 
tered as it moved very swiftly. A ponderous 
Irish gentleman, with priest’s cords in his hat 
and a small nickel-plated badge on his fat 
bosom, emerged from the knot supporting a 
Chinaman who had been stabbed in the eye 
and was bleeding like a pig. The bystanders 
went their ways, and the Chinaman, assisted 
by the policeman, his own. Of course this 
was none of my business, but J rather wanted 
to know what had happened to the gentleman 
who had dealt the stab. It said a great deal 
for the excellence of the municipal arrange- 
ment of the town that a surging crowd did not 
at once block the street to see what was going 
forward. I was the sixth man and the last 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 243 


who assisted at the performance, and my curi- 
osity was six times the gréatest. Indeed, I 
felt ashamed of showing it. 

_ There were no more incidents till I reached 
the Palace Hotel, a seven-storied warren of 
humanity with a thousand rooms in it. All 
the travel books will tell you about hotel ar- 
rangements in this country. They should be 
seen to be appreciated. Understand clearly— 
and this letter is written after a thousand miles 
of experiences—that money will not buy you 
service in the West. When the hotel clerk— 
the man who awards your room to you and 
who is supposed to give you information— 
when that resplendent individual stoops to at- 
tend to your wants, he does so whistling or 
humming or picking his teeth, or pauses to 
converse with some one he knows. These per- 
formances, I gather, are to impress upon you 
that he is a free man and your equal. From 
his general appearance and the size of his dia- 
monds he ought to be your superior. There 
is no necessity for this swaggering self-con- 
sciousness of freedom. Business is business, 
and the man who is paid to attend to a man 
might reasonably devote his whole attention 
to the job. Out of office hours he can take his 
coach and four and pervade society if he 
pleases. 


244 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


Ina vast marble-paved hall, under the glare 
of an electric light, sat forty or fifty men, and 
for their use and amusement were provided 
spittoons of infinite capacity and generous 
gape. Most of the men wore frock-coats and 
top-hats—the things that we in India put on at 
a wedding-breakfast, if we possess them—but 
they all spat. They spat on principle. The - 
spittoons were on the staircases, in each bed- 
room—yea, and in chambers even more sa- 
cred than these. They chased one into retire- 
ment, but they blossomed in chiefest splendor 
round the bar, and they were all used, every 
reeking one of them. 

Just before I began to feel deathly sick an- 
other reporter grappled me. What he wanted 
to know was the precise area of India in square 
miles. I referred him to Whitaker. He had 
never heard of Whitaker. He wanted it from 
my own mouth, and I would not tell him. 
Then he swerved off, just like the other man, 
to details of journalism in our own country. 
T ventured to suggest that the interior econ- 
omy of a paper most concerned the people who 
worked it. 

“That’s the very thing that interests us,” he 
said. “Have you got reporters anything like 
our reporters on Indian newspapers?” 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 245 


“We have not,” I said, and suppressed the 
“thank God” rising to my lips. 

“Why haven’t you?” said he. 

“Because they would die,” I said. 

It was exactly like talking to a child—a very 
rude little child. He would begin almost every 
sentence with, “Now tell me something about 
India,” and would turn aimlessly from one 
question to the other without the least contin- 
uity. I was not angry, but keenly interested. 
The man was a revelation to me. To his ques- 
tions I returned answers mendacious and eva- 
sive. After all, it really did not matter what 
I said. He could not understand. I can only 
hope and pray that none of the readers of the 
Pioneer will ever see that portentous inter- 
view. The man made me out to be an idiot 
several sizes more driveling than my destiny 
intended, and the rankness of his ignorance 
managed to distort the few poor facts with 
which I supplied him into large and elaborate 
lies. “Then,” thought I, “the matter of Amer- 
ican journalism shall be looked into later on. 
At present I will enjoy myself.” 

No man rose to tell me what were the lions 
of the place. No one volunteered any sort of 
conveyance. I was absolutely alone in this 
big city of white folk. By instinct I sought re- 


246 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


freshment, and came upon a bar-room full of 
bad Salon pictures in which men with hats 
on the backs of their heads were wolfing food 
from a counter. It was the institution of the 
“free lunch” I had struck. You paid for a 
drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. 
For something less than a rupee a day a man 
can feed himself sumptuously in San Fran- 
cisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remem- 
ber this if ever you are stranded in these parts. 

Later I began a vast but unsystematic ex- 
ploration of the streets. I asked for no names. 
It was enough that the pavements were full of 
white men and women, the streets clanging 
with traffic, and that the restful roar of a great 
city rang in my ears. The cable cars glided 
to all points of the compass at once. I took 
them one by one till I could go no further. 
San Francisco has been pitched down on the 
sand bunkers of the Bikaneer desert. About 
one-fourth of it is ground reclaimed from the 
sea—any old-timers will tell you all about that. 
The remainder is just ragged, unthrifty sand 
hills, to-day pegged down by houses. 

From an English point of view there has 
not been the least attempt at grading those 
hills, and indeed you might as well try to grade 
the hillocks of Sind. The cabie cars have for 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 247, 


all practical purposes made San Francisco a 
dead level. They take no count of rise or fall, 
but slide equably on their appointed courses 
from one end to the other of a six-mile street. 
They turn corners almost at right angles, cross 
other lines, and for aught [ know may run up 
the sides of houses. There is no visible agency 
of their flight, but once in a while you shall pass 
a five-storied building humming with machin- 
ery that winds up an everlasting wire cable, 
and the initiated will tell you that here is the 
mechanism. I gave up asking questions. If 
it pleases Providence to make a car run up 
and down a slit in the ground for many miles, 
and if for twopence halfpenny I can ride in 
that car, why shall I seek the reasons of the 
miracle? Rather let me look out of the win- 
dows till the shops give place to thousands and 
thousands of little houses made of wood (to 
imitate stone), each house just big enough for 
aman and his family. Let me watch the peo- 
ple in the cars and try to find out in what man- 
ner they differ from us, their ancestors. 

It grieves me now that I cursed them (in 
the matter of book piracy), because I perceived 
that my curse is working and that their speech 
is becoming a horror already. They delude 
themselves into the belief that they talk Eng- 


248 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


lish—the English—and I have already been 
pitied for speaking with “an English accent.” 
The man who pitied me spoke, so far as I was 
concerned, the language of thieves. And they 
all do. Where we put the accent forward they 
throw it back, and vice versa; where we give 
the long “a” they use the short, and words so 
simple as to be past mistaking they pronounce 
somewhere up in the dome of their heads. 
How do these things happen? 

Oliver Wendell Holmes says that the Yan- 
kee school-marm, the cider and the salt cod- 
fish of the Eastern States, are responsible for 
what he calls a nasal accent. I know better. 
They stole books from across the water with- 
out paying for ’em, and the snort of delight 
was fixed in their nostrils forever by a just 
Providence. That is why they talk a foreign 
tongue to-day. 

“Cats is dogs, and rabbits is dogs, and so’s 
parrots. But this ’ere tortoise is an insect, so 
there ain’t no charge,” as the old porter said. 

A Hindoo is a Hindoo and a brother to the 
man who knows his vernacular. And a 
Frenchman is French because he speaks his 
own language. But the American has no lan- 
guage. He is dialect, slang, provincialism, ac- 


cent, and so forth. Now that I have heard — : 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 249 


their voices, all the beauty of Bret Harte is 
being ruined for me, because I find myself 
catching through the roll of his rhythmical 
prose the cadence of his peculiar fatherland. 
Get an American lady to read to you “How 
Santa Clause Came to Simpson’s Bar,” and 
see how much is, under her tongue, left of the 
beauty of the original. 

But Iam sorry for Bret Harte. It happened 
this way. A reporter asked me what I thought 
of the city, and I made answer suavely that it 
was hallowed ground to me, because of Bret 
Harte. That was true. 

“Well,” said the reporter, “Bret Harte 
claims California, but California don’t claim 
Bret Harte. He’s been so long in England 
that he’s quite English. Have you seen our 
cracker factories or the new offices of the Ex- 
aminer. 

He could not understand that to the out- 
side world the city was worth a great deal less 
than the man. I never intended to curse the 
- people with a provincialism so vast as this. 

But let us return to our sheep—which 
means the sea-lions of the Cliff House. They 
are the great show of San Francisco. You 
take a train which pulls up the middle of the 
street (it killed two people the day before yes- 


250 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


terday, being unbraked and driven absolutely 
regardless of consequences), and you pull up 
somewhere at the back of the city on the Pa- 
cific beach. Originally the cliffs and their ap- 
proaches must have been pretty, but they have 
been so carefully defiled with advertisements 
that they are now one big blistered abomina- 
tion. A hundred yards from the shore stood a 
big rock covered with the carcasses of the sleek 
sea-beasts, who roared and rolled and walloped 
in the spouting surges. No bold man had 
painted the creatures sky-blue or advertised 
newspapers on their backs, wherefore they did 
not match the landscape, which was chiefly 
hoarding. Some day, perhaps, whatever sort 
of government may obtain in this country will 
make a restoration of the place and keep it 
clean and neat. At present the sovereign peo- 
ple, of whom I have heard so much already, 
are vending cherries and painting the virtues 
of “Little Bile Beans” all over it. 

Night fell over the Pacific, and the white 
sea-fog whipped through the streets, dimming 
the splendors of the electric lights. It is the 
use of this city, her men and women folk, to 
parade between the hours of eight and ten a 
certain street called Kearney Street, where the 
finest shops are situated. Here the click of 


_ se _ = > 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 251 


high heels on the pavement is loudest, here the 
lights are brightest, and here the thunder of 
the traffic is most overwhelming. I watched 
Young California, and saw that it was, at 
least, expensively dressed, cheerful in manner, 
and self-asserting in conversation. Also the 
women were very fair. Perhaps eighteen days 
aboard ship had something to do with my un- 
reserved admiration. The maidens were of 
generous build, large, well groomed, and at- 
tired in raiment that even to my inexperienced 
_ eyes must have cost much. Kearney Street at 
nine o'clock levels all distinctions of rank as 
impartially as the grave. Again and again I 
loitered at the heels of a couple of resplendent 
beings, only to overhear, when I expected the 
level voice of culture, the staccato “Sez he,” 
Sez I” that is the mark of the white servant- 
girl all the world over. 

This was depressing because, in spite of all 
that goes to the contrary, fine feathers ought 
to make fine birds. There was wealth—un- 
limited wealth—in the streets, but not an ac- 
cent that would not have been dear at fifty 
cents. Wherefore, revolving in my mind that 
these folk were barbarians, I was presently en- 
lightened and made aware that they also were 
the heirs of all the ages, and civilized after 

Kip. 6—I 


252 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


all. There appeared before me an affable 
stranger of prepossessing appearance, with a 
blue and an innocent eye. Addressing me by 
name, he claimed to have met me in New 
York, at the Windsor, and to this claim I 
gave qualified assent. JI did not remember 
the fact, but since he was so certain of it, why, 
then—I waited developments. 

“And what did you think of Indiana when 
you came through?’ was the next question. 

It revealed the mystery of previous acquaint- 
ance and one or two other things. With re- 
prehensible carelessness my friend of the light- 
blue eye had looked up the name of his victim 
in the hotel register, and read “Indiana” for 
India. 

The provincialism with which I had cursed 
his people extended to himself. He could not 
imagine an Englishman coming through the 
States from west to east instead of by the reg- 
ularly ordained route. My fear was that in his 
delight in finding me so responsive he would 
make remarks about New York and the Wind- 
sor which I could not understand. And, in- 
deed, he adventured in this direction once or 
twice, asking me what I thought of such and 
such streets, which from his tone I gathered to 
be anything but respectable. It is trying te 


— a 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 253 


talk unknown New York in almost unknown 
San Francisco. But my friend was merciful. 
He protested that I was one after his own 
heart, and pressed upon me rare and curious 
drinks at more than one bar. These drinks | 
accepted with gratitude, as also the cigars with 
which his pockets were stored. He would 
show me the life of the city. Having no de- 
sire to watch a weary old play again, I evaded 
the offer and received in lieu of the devil’s in- 
struction much coarse flattery. Curiously con- 
stituted is the soul of man. Knowing how and 
where this man lied, waiting idly for the finale, 
I was distinctly conscious, as he bubbled com- 
pliments in my ear, of soft thrills of gratified 
pride stealing from hat-rim to boot-heels. I 
was wise, quoth he—any body could see that 
with half an eye; sagacious, versed in the ways 
of the world, an acquaintance to be desired; 
one who had tasted the cup of life with dis- 
cretion. 

All this pleased me, and in a measure 
numbed the suspicion that was thoroughly 
aroused. Eventually the blue-eyed one dis- 
covered, nay, insisted, that I had a taste for 
cards (this was clumsily worked in, but it 
was my fault, for in that I met him half-way 
and allowed him no chance of good acting). 


254 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


Hereupon I laid my head upon one side and 
simulated unholy wisdom quoting odds and 
ends of poker talk, all ludicrously misapplied. 
My friend kept his countenance admirably, and 
well he might, for five minutes later we ar- 
rived, always by the purest of chance, at a place 
where we could play cards and also frivol with 
Louisiana State Lottery tickets. Would I 
play? ) 

“Nay,” said I, “for to me cards have neither 
meaning nor continuity ; but let us assume that 
I am going to play. How would you and your 
friends get to work? Would you play a 
straight game, or make me drunk, or—well, 
the fact is, I’m a newspaper man, and I’d be 
much obliged if you’d let me know something 
about bunco steering.” 

My blue-eyed friend erected himself into an 
obelisk of profanity. He cursed me by his 
gods—the right and left bower; he even cursed 
the very good cigars he had given me. But, 
the storm over, he quieted down an@ explained. 
I apologized for causing him to waste an even- 
ing, and we spent a very pleasant time to- 
gether. 

Inaccuracy, provincialism, and a too hasty 
rushing to conclusions, were the rocks that he 
had split on, but he got his revenge when he 
said: 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 255 


“How would I play with you? From all 
the poppy-cock (Anglice bosh) you talked 
about poker, I’d ha’ played a straight game, 
and skinned you. I wouldn’t have taken the 
trouble to make you drunk. You never knew 
anything of the game, but how I was mistaken 
in going to work on you, makes me sick.” 

He glared at me as though I had done him 
an injury. To-day I know how it is that year 
after year, week after week, the bunco steerer, 
who is the confidence trick and the card- 
sharper man of other climes, secures his prey. 
He clavers them over with flattery as the snake 
clavers the rabbit. The incident depressed me 
because it showed I had left the innocent East 
far behind and was come to a country where 
a man must look out for himself. The very 
hotels bristled with notices about keeping my 
door locked and depositing my valuables in a 
safe. The white man ina lump is bad. Weep- 
ing softly for O-Toyo (little I knew that my 
heart was to be torn afresh from my bosom) I 
fell asleep in the clanging hotel. 

Next morning I had entered upon the de- 
ferred inheritance. There are no princes in 
America—at least with crowns on their heads 
—but a generous-minded member of some 
royal family received my letter of introduction, 


256 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


Ere the day closed I was a member of the two 
clubs, and booked for many engagements to 
dinner and party. Now, this prince, upon 
whose financial operations be continual in- 
crease, had no reason, nor had the others, his 
friends, to put himself out for the sake of one 
Briton more or Jess, but he rested not till he 
had accomplished all in my behalf that a 
mother could think of for her débutante 
daughter. 

Do you know the Bohemian Club of San 
Francisco? They say its fame extends over 
the world. It was created, somewhat on the 
lines of the Savage, by men who wrote or 
drew things, and has blossomed into most un- 
republican luxury. The ruler of the place is an 
owl—an owl standing upon a skull and cross- 
bones, showing forth grimly the wisdom of the 
man of letters and the end of his hopes for im- 
mortality. The owl stands on the staircase, a 
statue four feet high; is carved in the wood- 


work, flutters on the frescoed ceiling; is 


stamped on the note-paper, and hangs on the 
walls. He is an ancient and honorable bird. 
Under his wing *twas my privilege to meet 
with white men whose lives were not chained 
down to routine of toil, who wrote magazine 
articles instead of reading them hurriedly in 


_— 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 257 


the pauses of office-work, who painted pictures 
instead of contenting themselves with cheap 
etchings picked up at another man’s sale of 
effects. Mine were all the rights of social in- 
tercourse, craft by craft, that India, stony- 
hearted stepmother of collectors, has swindled 
us out of. Treading soft carpets and breath- 
ing the incense of superior cigars, I wandered 
from room to room studying the paintings in 
which the members of the club had caricatured 
themselves, their associates, and their aims. 
There was a slick French audacity about the 
workmanship of these men of toil unbending 
that went straight to the heart of the beholder. 
And yet it was not altogether French. A dry 
grimness of treatment, almost Dutch, marked 
the difference. The men painted as they spoke 
—with certainty. The club indulges in revel- 
ries which it calls “jinks’—high and low, at 
intervals—and each of these gatherings is 
faithfully portrayed in oils by hands that know 
their business. In this club were no amateurs 
spoiling canyas, because they fancied they 
could handle oils without knowledge of 
shadows or anatomy—no gentleman of leisure 
ruining the temper of publishers and an al- 
ready ruined market with attempts to write, 
“Necause everybody writes something these 
days.” 


258 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


My hosts were working, or had worked for 
their daily bread with pen or paint, and their 
talk for the most part was of the shop—shoppy 
—that is to say, delightful. They extended a 
large hand of welcome, and were as brethren, 
and I did homage to the owl and listened to 
their talk. An Indian club about Christmas- 
time will yield, if properly worked, an abund- 
ant harvest of queer tales; but at a gathering 
of Americans from the uttermost ends of their 
own continent, the tales are larger, thicker, 
more spinous, and even more azure than any 
Indian variety. Tales of the war I heard told 
by an ex-officer of the South over his evening 
drink to a colonel of the Northern army, my 
introducer, who had served as a trooper in the 
Northern Horse, throwing in emendations 
from time to time. “Tales of the Law,” which 
in this country is an amazingly elastic affair, 
followed from the lips of a judge. Forgive 
me for recording one tale that struck me as 
new. It may interest the up-country Bar in 
India. 

Once upon a time there was Samuelson, a 
young lawyer, who feared not God, neither re- 
garded the Bench. (Name, age, and town of 
the man were given at great length.) To him 
no case had ever come as a client, partly be-~ 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 259 


cause he lived in a district where lynch law 
prevailed, and partly because the most desper- 
ate prisoner shrunk from intrusting himself to 
the mercies of a phenomenal stammerer. But 
in time there happened an aggravated murder 
—so bad, indeed, that by common consent the 
citizens decided, as a prelude to lynching, to 
give the real law a chance. They could, in 
fact, gambol round that murder. They met— 
the court in its shirt-sleeves—and against the 
raw square of the Court House window a 
temptingly suggestive branch of a tree fretted 
the sky. No one appeared for the prisoner, 
and, partly in jest, the court advised young 
Samuelson to take up the case. 

“The prisoner is undefended, Sam,” said the 
court. “The square thing to do would be for 
you to take him aside and do the best you can 
for him.” 

Court, jury, and witness then adourned to 
the veranda, while Samuelson led his client 
aside to the Court House cells, An hour 
passed ere the lawyer returned alone. Mutely 
the audience questioned. 

“May it p-p-please the c-court,” said Sam- 
uelson, “my client’s case is a b-b-b-bad one—a 
d-d-amn bad one. You told me to do the 
b-b-best I c-could for him, judge, so I’ve jest 


1 sas fi Me 


260 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


given him y-your b-b-bay gelding, an’ told him 
to light out for healthier c-climes, my p-p-pro- 
fessional opinion being he’d be hanged 
quicker’n h-h-hades if he dallied here. B-by 
this time my client’s ‘bout fifteen mile out yon- 
der somewheres. That was the b-b-best I 
could do for him, may it p-p-please the court.” 

The young man, escaping punishment in lieu 
of the prisoner, made his fortune ere five 
years. | 
Other voices followed, with equaily won- 
drous tales of riata-throwing in Mexico and 
Arizona, of gambling at army posts in Texas, 
of newspaper wars waged in godless Chicago 

(I could not heip being interested, but they 
were not pretty tricks), of deaths sudden and 
violent in Montana and Dakota, of the loves 
of half-breed maidens in the South, and fan- 
tastic huntings for gold in mysterious Alaska. 
Above all, they told the story of the building 
of old San Francisco, when the “finest collec- 
tion of humanity on God’s earth, sir, started 
this town, and the water came up to the foot 
of Market Street.” Very terrible were some 
of the tales, grimly humorous the others, and 
the men in broadcloth and fine linen who told 
them had played their parts in them. 

“And now and again when things got too 


TN, a ee ee ee ee Sa ee rn, 


AT THE GOLDEN GATE 261 


bad they would toll the city bell, and the Vigs- 
lance Committee turned out and hanged the 
suspicious characters. A man didn’t begin to 
be suspected in those days till he had com- 
mitted at least one unprovoked murder,” said 
a calm-eyed, portly old gentleman. 

I looked at the pictures around me, the 
noiseless, neat-uniformed waiter behind me, 
the oak-ribbed ceiling above, the velvet carpet 
beneath. It was hard to realize that even 
twenty years ago you could see a man hanged 
with great pomp. Later on I found reason to 
change my opinion. The tales gave me a head- 
ache and set me thinking. How in the world 
was it possible to take in even one thousandth 
of this huge, roaring, many-sided continent? 
In the tobacco-scented silence of the sumptu- 
ous library lay Professor Bryce’s book on the 
American Republic. 

“It is an omen,” said I. ‘He has done all 
things in all seriousness, and he may be pur- 
chased for half a guinea. Those who desire 
information of the most undoubted, must refer 
to his pages. For me is the daily round of 
vagabondage, the recording of the incidents of 
the hour and intercourse with the traveling- 
companion of the day. I will not ‘do’ this 
country at all.” 


262 AT THE GOLDEN GATE 


And I forgot all about India for fen days 
while I went out to dinners and watched the 
social customs of the people, which are entirely 
different from our customs, and was intro- 
duced to men of many millions. These per- 
sons are harmless in their earlier stages— 
that is to say, a man worth three or four mil- 
lion dollars may be a good talker, clever, 
amusing, and of the world; a man with twice 
that amount is to be avoided, and a twenty 
million man is—just twenty millions. Take 
an instance. I was speaking to a newspaper 
man about seeing the proprietor of his journal, 
as in my innocence [ supposed newspaper men 
occasionally did. My friend snorted indig- 
nantly: 

“See him! Great Scott! No. If he hap- 
pens to appear in the office, I have to associate 
with him; but, thank Heaven! outside of that 
I move in circles where he cannot come.” 

And yet the first thing I have been taught to 
believe is that money was everything in Amer- 
ica! 


a 


a 


Ir 
AMERICAN POLITICS 


] HAVE been watching machinery in repose 
after reading about machinery in action. 

An excellent gentleman, who bears a name 
honored in the magazine, writes, much as 
Disraeli orated, of “‘the sublime instincts of an 
ancient people,” the certainty with which they 
can be trusted to manage their own affairs in 
their own way, and the speed with which they 
are making for all sorts of desirable goals. 
This he called a statement or purview of Amer- 
ican politics. 

I went almost directly afterward to a saloon 
where gentlemen interested in ward politics 
nightly congregate. They were not pretty per- 
sons. Some of them were bloated, and they all 
swore cheerfully till the heavy gold watch- 
chains on their fat stomachs rose and fell 
again; but they talked over their liquor as men 
who had power and unquestioned access to 
places of trust and profit. 

The magazine See discussed theories of 

205 


266 AMERICAN POLITICS 


government; these men the practice./ They 
had been there. They knew all about it. They 
banged their fists on the table and spoke of 


political “pulls,” the vending of votes, and so. 


forth. Theirs was not the talk of village bab- 
blers reconstructing the affairs of the nation, 
but of strong, coarse, lustful men fighting for 
spoil, and thoroughly understanding the best 
methods of reaching it. 

I listened long and intently to speech I could 
not understand—or but in spots. 

It was the speech of business, however. I 
had sense enough to know that, and to do my 
laughing outside the door. 

Then I began to understand why my pleas- 
ant and well-educated hosts in San Francisco 


spoke with a bitter scorn of such duties of — 
citizenship as voting and taking an interest in 


the distribution of offices. Scores of men have 
told me, without false pride, that they would 
as soon concern themselves with the public 
affairs of the city or state as rake muck with a 
steam-shovel. It may be that their lofty dis- 
dain covers selfishness, but I should be very 
sorry habitually to meet the fat gentlemen with 
shiny top-hats and plump cigars in whose so- 
ciety I have been spending the evening. 

Read about politics as the cultured writer of 


AMERICAN POLITICS 267 


the magazine regards ’em, and then, and not 
till then, pay your respects to the gentlemen 
who run the grimy reality. 

I’m sick of interviewing night editors who 
lean their chair against the wall, and, in re- 
sponse to my demand-for the record of a 
prominent citizen, answer: “Well, you see, he 
began by keeping a saloon,” etc. I prefer to 
believe that my informants are treating me as 
in the old sinful days in India I was used to 
treat the wondering globe-trotter. They de- 
clare that they speak the truth, and the news 
of dog politics lately vouchsafed to me in grog- 
geries inclines me to believe, but I won’t. The 
people are much too nice to slangander as reck- 
lessly as I have been doing. 

Besides, I am hopelessly in love with about 
eight American maidens—all perfectly delight- 
ful till the next one comes into the room. 

O-Toyo was a darling, but she lacked sev- 
eral things—conversation for one. You can- 
not live on giggles. She shall remain unmar- 
ried at Nagasaki, while I roast a battered heart 
before the shrine of a big Kentucky blonde, 
who had for a nurse when she was little a 
negro “mammy.” 

By consequence she has welded on Califor- 
nia beauty, Paris dresses, Eastern culture, Eu- 


268 AMERICAN POLITICS | 

| 
rope trips, and wild Western originality, the 
queer, dreamy superstitions of the quarters, 
and the result is soul-shattering, And she is 
but one of many stars. 


Item, a maiden, who believes in education 


and possesses it, with a few hundred thousand 
dollars to boot and a taste for slumming. 

Item, the leader of a sort of informal salon 
where girls congregate, read papers, and dar- 
ingly discuss metaphysical problems and candy 
—a sloe-eyed, black-browed, imperious maiden 
she. 

Item, a very small maiden, absolutely with- 
out reverence, who can in one swift sentence 
trample upon and leave gasping half a dozen 
young men. 

Item, a millionairess, burdened with her 
money, lonely, caustic, with a tongue keen as a 
sword, yearning for a sphere, but chained up 
to the rock of her vast possessions. 

Item, a typewriter maiden earning her own 
bread in this big city, because she doesn’t think 
a girl ought to be a burden on her parents, who 
quotes Théophile Gautier and moves through 
the world manfully, much respected for all her 
twenty inexperienced summers. 

ltem, a woman from cloud-land who has no 
history in the past or future, but is discreetly 


7 
x 
} 
"i 
D 
4 
? 
* 
iv 


AMERICAN POLITICS 269 


of the present, and strives for the confidences 
of male humanity on the grounds of “sym- 
pathy” (methinks this is not altogether 2 new 
type). 

Item, a girl in a “dive,” blessed with a Greek 
head and eyes, that seem to speak all that is 
best and sweetest in the world. But woe is 
me! She has no ideas in this world or the 
next beyond the consumption of beer (a com- 
mission on each bottle), and protests that she 
sings the songs allotted to her nightly without 
more than the vaguest notion of their meaning. 

Sweet and comely are the maidens of 
Devonshire; delicate and of gracious seeming 
those who live in the pleasant places of Lon- 
don; fascinating for all their demureness the 
damsels of France, clinging closely to their 
mothers, with large eyes wondering at the 
wicked world; excellent in her own place and 
to those who understand her is the Anglo-In- 
dian “spin” in her second season; but the girls 
of America are above and beyond them all. 
They are clever, they can talk—yea, it is said 
that they think. Certainly they have an ap- 
pearance of so doing which is delightfully de- 
ceptive. 

They are original, and regard you between 
the brows with unabashed eyes as a sistet 


a7 -AMERICAN POLITICS 


might look at her brother. They are in- 
structed, tco, in the folly and vanity of the 
male mind, for they have associated with “the 


boys” from babyhood, and can discerningly — 


minister to both vices or pleasantly snub the 
possessor. They possess, moreover, a life 
among themselves, independent of any mascu- 
line associations. They have societies and 
clubs and unlimited tea-fights where all the 


guests are girls. They are self-possessed, 


without parting with any tenderness that is 
their sex-right ; they understand; they can take 
care of themselves; they are superbly inde- 
pendent. When you ask them what makes 
them so charming, they say: | 
“It 1s because we are better educated than 
your girls, and—and we are more sensible in 
regard to men. We have good times all 
round, but we aren’t taught to regard every 
man as a possible husband. Nor is he expected 
to marry the first girl he calls on regularly.” 
Yes, they have good times, their freedom is 
large, and they do not abuse it. They can go 
driving with young men and receive visits 
from young men to an extent that would make 
an English mother wink with horror, and 


neither driver nor drivee has a thought beyond © 


the enjoyment of a good time. As certain, 
also, of their own poets have said: 


AMERICAN POLITICS 20% 


“Man is fire and woman is tow, 
And the devil he comes and begins to blow.” 


In America the tow is soaked in a solution 
that makes it fire-proof, in absolute liberty and 
large knowledge; consequently, accidents do 
not exceed the regular percentage arranged by 
the devil for each class and climate under the 
skies. 

But the freedom of the young girl has its 
drawbacks. She is—TI say it with all reluctance 
—irreverent, from her forty-dollar bonnet to 
the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes. She 
talks flippantly to her parents and men old 
enough to be her grandfather. She has a pre- 
Scriptive right to the society of the man who 
arrives. The parents admit it. 

This is sometimes embarrassing, especially 
when you call on a man and his wife for the 
sake of information—the one being a merchant 
of varied knowledge, the other a woman of the 
world. In five minutes your host has vanished. 
In another five his wife has followed him, and 
you are left alone with a very charming 
maiden, doubtless, but certainly not the person 
you came to see. She chatters, and you grin, 
but you leave with the very strong impression 
of a wasted morning. This has been my ex- 
perience once or twice. I have even said as 
pointedly as I dared to a man: 


272 AMERICAN POLITICS 


“T came to see you.” 

“You'd better see me in my office, then. 
The house belongs to my women folk—to my 
daughter, that is to say.” 

He spoke the truth. The American of 
wealth is owned by his family. They exploit 
him for bullion. The women get the ha’pence, 
the kicks are all his own. Nothing is too good 
for an American’s daughter (I speak here 
of the moneyed classes). | 

The girls take every gift as a matter of 
course, and yet they develop greatly when a 
catastrophe arrives and the man of many mil- 
lions goes up or goes down, and his daughters 
take to stenography or typewriting. I have 
heard many tales of heroism from the lips of 
girls who counted the principals among their 
friends. The crash came, Mamie, or Hattie, 
or Sadie, gave up their maid, their carriages 
and candy, and with a No. 2 Remington and a 
stout heart set about earning their daily bread. 

“And did I drop her from the list of my 
friends? No, sir,” said a scarlet-lipped vision 
in white lace; “that might happen to us any 
day.” 

It may be this sense of possible disaster in 
the air that makes San Francisco society go 
with so captivating a rush and whirl. Reck- 


——— 


AMERICAN POLITICS 273 


lessness is in the air. I can’t explain where it 
comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds 
of the Pacific make you drunk to begin with. 
The aggressive luxury on all sides helps out 
the intoxication, and you spin forever “down 
the ringing grooves of change” (there is no 
small change, by the way, west of the Rockies) 
as long as money lasts. They make greatly 
and they spend lavishly ; not only the rich, but 
the artisans, who pay nearly five pounds for a 
suit of clothes, and for other luxuries in pro- 
portion. 
_ The young men rejoice in the days of their 
youth. They gamble, yacht, race, enjoy prize- 
fights and cock-fights, the one openly, the other 
in secret; they establish luxurious clubs; they 
break themselves over horse-flesh and other 
things, and they are instant in a quarrel. At 
twenty they are experienced in business, em- 
bark in vast enterprises, take partners as ex- 
perienced as themselves, and go to pieces with 
as much splendor as their neighbors. Remem- 
ber that the men who stocked California in the 
fifties were physically, and, as far as regards 
certain tough virtues, the pick of the earth. 
The inept and the weakly died en route, or 
- went under in the days of construction. To 
this nucleus were added all the races of the 


274 AMERICAN POLITICS 


Continent—French, Italian, German, and, of 
course, the Jew. | 

The result you can see in the large-boned, © 
deep-chested, delicate-handed women, and 
long, elastic, well-built boys. It needs no little 
golden badge swinging from the watch-chain 
to mark the native son of the golden West, the 
countrybred of California. 

Him I loved because he is devoid of fear, 
carries himself like a man, and has a heart as 
big as his boots. I fancy, too, he knows how 
to enjoy the blessings of life that his province 
so abundantly bestows upon him. At least, I 
heard a little rat of a creature with hock-bottle 
shoulders explaining that a man from Chicago 
could pull the eyeteeth of a Californian in 
business. 

Well, if I lived in fairyland, where cherries 
were as big as plums, plums as big as apples, 
and strawberries of no account, where the pro- 
cession of the fruits of the seasons was like a 
pageant in a Drury Lane pantomime and the 


dry air was wine, I should let business slide — 


once in a way and kick up my heels with my 
fellows. The tale of the resources of Cali- 
fornia—vegetable and mineral—is a fairy-tale. 
You can read it in books. You would never 
believe me. 


AMERICAN POLITICS 278 


All manner of nourishing food, from sea-fish 
to beef, may be bought at the lowest prices, and 
the people are consequently well-developed and 
of a high stomach., They demand ten shillings 
for tinkering a jammed lock of a trunk; they 
_ Teceive sixteen shillings a day for working as 
carpenters ; they spend many sixpences on very 
bad cigars, which the poorest of them smoke, 
and they go mad over a prize-fight. When 
_ they disagree they do so fatally, with fire-arms 
in their hands, and on the public streets. I 
_ was just clear of Mission Street when the 
trouble began between two gentlemen, one of 
whom perforated the other. 

When a policeman, whose name I do not 
recollect, “fatally shot Ed Hearney” for at- 
tempting to escape arrest, I was in the next 
street. For these things I am.thankful. It is 
enough to travel with a policeman in a tram- 
car, and, while he arranges his coat-tails as he 
sits down, to catch sight of a loaded revolver. 
It is enough to know that fifty per cent. of the 
' men in the public saloons carry pistols about 
them. 

The Chinamen waylays his adversary, and 
methodically chops him to pieces with his hat- 
chet. Then the press roars about the brutal 
ferocity of the pagan. 


270 AMERICAN POLITICS 


The Italian reconstructs his friend with a 
long knife. The press complains of the way- 
wardness of the alien. 

The Irishman and the native Californian in 
their hours of discontent use the revolver, not 
once, but six times. The press records the fact, 
and asks in the next column whether the world 
can parallel the progress of San Francisco. 
The American who loves his country will tell 
you that this sort of thing is confined to the 
lower classes. Just at present an ex-judge who 
was sent to jail by another judge (upon my 
word I cannot tell whether these titles mean 
anything) is breathing red-hot vengeance 
against his enemy. The papers have inter- 
viewed both parties, and confidently expect a 
fatal issue. | 

Now, let me draw breath and curse the 
negro waiter, and through him the negro in 
service generally. He has been made a citizen 


with a vote, consequently both political parties — 


play with him. But that is neither here nor 
there. He will commit in one meal every 
bétise that a senllion fresh from the plow-tail is 
capable of, and he will continue to repeat those 
faults. He is as complete a heavy-footed, un 
comprehending, bungle-fisted fool as any mem- 
sahib in the East ever took into her establish< 


St ees 


AMERICAN POLITICS 277 


ment. But he is according to law a free and 
independent citizen—consequently above re- 
proof or criticism. He, and he alone, in this 
insane city, will wait at table (the Chinaman 
doesn’t count). 

He is untrained, inept, but he will fill the 
place and draw the pay. Now, God and his 
father’s fate made him intellectually inferior to 
the Oriental. He insists on pretending that he 
serves tables by accident—as a sort of amuse- 
ment. He wishes you to understand this little 
fact. You wish to eat your meals, and, if pos- 
sible, to have them properly served. He is a 
big, black, vain baby and a man rolled into 
one. 

A colored gentleman who insisted on getting 
me pie when I wanted something else, demand- 
ed information about India. I gave him some 
facts about wages. 

“Oh, hell!’ said he, cheerfully, “that 
wouldn’t keep me in cigars for a month.” 

Then he fawned on me for a ten-cent piece. 
Later he took it upon himself to pity the na- 
tives of India. “Heathens,” he called them— 
this woolly one, whose race has been the butt 
of every comedy on the native stage since the 
beginning. And I turned and saw by the head 
upon his shoulders that he was a Yoruba man 


278 AMERICAN POLITICS 


if there be any truth in ethnological castes. 
He did his thinking in English, but he was a 
Yoruba negro, and the race type had remained 
the same throughout his generations. And the 
room was full of other races—some that looked 
exactly like Gallas (but the trade was never 
recruited from that side of Africa), some 
duplicates of Cameroon heads, and some Kroo- 
men, if ever Kroomen wore evening dress. 

The American does not consider little mat- 
ters of descent, though by this time he ought 
to know all about “damnable heredity.” As a 
general rule he keeps himself very far from the 
negro, and says things about him that are not 
pretty. There are six million negroes, more or 
less, in the States, and they are increasing. 
The American, once having made them citi- 
zens, cannot unmake them. He says, in his 
newspapers, they ought to be elevated by ed- 
ucation. He is trying this, but it is likely to be 
a long job, because black blood is much more 
adhesive than white, and throws back with 
annoying persistence. 

When the negro gets religion he returns 
directly as a hiving bee to the first instincts of 
his people. Just now a wave of religion is 
sweeping over some of the Southern States. 

Up to the present two Messiahs and a Daniel 


ee ee 


AMERICAN POLITICS 270 


have appeared, and several human sacrifices 
have been offered up to these incarnations. 
The Daniel managed to get three young men, 
who he insisted were Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abednego, to walk into a blast furnace, 
guaranteeing non-combustion. They did not 
return. I have seen nothing of this kind, but I 
have attended a negro church. They pray, or 
are caused to pray by themselves in this. coun- 
try. The congregation were moved by the 
spirit to groans and tears, and one of them 
danced up the aisle to the mourners’ bench. 
The motive may have been genuine. The 
movements of the shaken body were those of 
_a Zanzibar stick dance, such as you see at Aden 
on the coal-boats, and even as I watched the 
people, the links that bound them to the white 
man snapped one by one, and I saw before me 
the hubsht (woolly hair) praying to a God he 
did not understand. Those neatly dressed folk 
on the benches, and the grey-headed elder by 
the window, were savages, neither more nor 
less. 

What will the American do with the negro? 
The South will not consort with him. In 
some States miscegenation is a penal offence. 
_ The North is every year less and less in need of 
his services, 


280 AMERICAN POLITICS 


And he will not disappear. He will con- © 
tinue as a problem. His friends will urge that — 
he is as good as the white man. His enemies — 
—well, you can guess what his enemies will do — 
from a little incident that followed on a recent — 
appointment by the President. He made a ~ 
negro an assistant in a post office where—think — 
of it!—he had to work at the next desk to a © 
white girl, the daughter of a Colonel, one of — 
the first families of Georgia’s modern chivalry, — 
and all the weary, weary rest of it. The 
Southern chivalry howled, and hanged or 
burned some one in effigy. Perhaps it was the © 
President, and perhaps it was the negro—but — 
the principal remains the same. They said it © 
was an insult. It is not good to be a negro in © 
the land of the free and the home of the brave. — 

But this is nothing to do with San Fran- — 
cisco and her merry maidens, her strong, — 
swaggering men, and her wealth of gold and © 
pride. They bore me to a banquet in honor of 
a brave lieutenant—Carlin, of the “Vandalia” — 
—who stuck by his ship in the great cyclone © 
at Apia and comported himself as an officer — 
should. On that occasion—’twas at the © 
Bohemian Club—I heard oratory with the © 
roundest of o’s, and devoured a dinner the © 
memory of which will descend wifi me into the ; 
hungry grave. | 


AMERICAN POLITICS 281 


There were about forty speeches delivered, 
and not one of them was average or ordinary. 
It was my first introduction to the American 
eagle screaming for all it was worth. The 
lieutenant’s heroism served as a peg from 
which the silver-tongued ones turned them- 
selves loose and kicked. 

They ransacked the clouds of sunset, the 
thunderbolts of heaven, the deeps of hell, and 
the splendor of the resurrection for tropes and 
metaphors, and hurled the result at the head 
of the guest of the evening. 

Never since the morning stars sung together 
for joy, I learned, had an amazed creation wit- 
nessed such superhuman bravery as that dis- 
played by the American navy in the Samoa 
cyclone. Till earth rotted in the phosphores- 
cent star-and-stripe slime of a decayed uni- 
verse, that godlike gallantry would not be for- 
gotten. I grieve that I cannot give the exact 
words. My attempt at reproducing their spirit 
is pale and inadequate. I sat bewildered on a 
coruscating Niagara of blatherumskite. It was 
magnificent—it was stupendous—and I was 
conscious of a wicked desire to hide my face in 
a napkin and grin. Then according to rule, 
they produced their dead, and across the snowy 
table-cloths dragged the corpse of every man 


282 AMERICAN POLITICS 


slain in the Civil War, and hurled defiance at 
“our natural enemy” (England, so please 
you), “with her chain of fortresses across the 
world.” Thereafter they glorified their na- 
tion afresh from the beginning, in case any 
detail should have been overlooked, and that 
made me uncomfortable for their sakes. How 
in the world can a white man, a sahib, of our 
blood, stand up and plaster praise on his own 
country? He can think as highly as he likes, 
but this open-mouthed vehemence of adoration 
struck me almost as indelicate. My hosts 
talked for rather more than three hours, and at 
the end seemed ready for three hours more. 

But when the lieutenant—such a big, brave, 
gentle giant—rose to his feet, he delivered 
what seemed to me as the speech of the even- 
ing. I remember nearly the whole of it, and it 
ran something in this way: 

“Gentlemen—lIt’s very good of you to give 
me this dinner and tell me all these pretty 
things, but what I want you to understand— 
the fact is, what we want and what we ought 
to get at once, is a navy—more ships—lots of 
tain pe 

Then we howled the top of the roof off, and 
I for one fell in love with Carlin on the spot. 
Wallah! He was a man. 


AMERICAN POLITICS 283 


The prince among merchants bid me take 
no heed to the warlike sentiments of some of 
the old generals. 

“The sky-rockets are thrown in for effect,”’ 
quoth he, “and whenever we get on our hind 
legs we always express a desire to chaw up 
England. It’s a sort of family affair.” 

And, indeed, when you come to think of it, 
there is no other country for the American 
public speaker to trample upon. | 

France has Germany; we have Russia: for 
Italy Austria is provided; and the humblest 
Pathan possesses an ancestral enemy. 

Only America stands out of the racket, and 
therefore to be in fashion makes a sand-bag 
of the mother country, and hangs her when 
Occasion requires. 

“The chain of fortresses” man, a fascinating 
talker, explained to me after the affair that he 


was compelled to blow off steam. Everybody 


expected it. 

When we had chanted “The Star Spangled 
Banner” not more than eight times, we ad- 
journed. America is a very great country, but 
it is not yet heaven, with electric lights and 


_ plush fittings, as the speakers professed to be- 


lieve. My listening mind went back to the 


politicians in the saloon, who wasted no time 
Kip. 6—J 


284 AMERICAN POLITICS 


in talking about freedom, but quietly made ar- 
rangements to impose their will on the citizens. 
“The judge is a great man, but give thy 
presents to the clerk,” as the proverb saith. 
And what more remains to tell? I cannot 
write connectedly, because I am in love with 
all those girls aforesaid, and some others who 
do not appear in the invoice. The typewriter 
is an institution of which the comic papers 
make much capital, but she is vastly con- 
venient. She and a companion rent a room in 
a business quarter, and, aided by a typewriting 
machine, copy MSS. at the rate of six annas a 
page. Only a woman can operate a typewrit- 
ing machine, because she has served apprentice- 
ship to the sewing machine. She can earn as 
much as one hundred dollars a month, and, pro- 
fesses to regard this form of bread-winning as 
her natural destiny. But, oh! how she hates 


it in her heart of hearts! WhenI had got over © 
the surprise of doing business with and trying — 


to give orders to a young woman of coldly, 
clerkly aspect intrenched behind gold-rimmed 
spectacles, I made inquiries concerning the 
pleasures of this independence. They liked it 


—indeed they did. ’Twas the natural fate of — 


almost all girls—the recognized custom in — 


‘America—and I was a barbarian not to see it 
in that light. 


AMERICAN POLITICS 285 


“Well, and after?” said I. “What hap- 
pens?” 

“We work for our bread.” 

‘And then what do you expect?” 

“Then we shall work for our bread.” 

“Till you die?’ 

*“Y e-es—unless”— 

“Unless what? This is your business, yots 
know. A man works until he dies.” 

“So shall we’—this without enthusiasm— 
“T suppose.” 

Said the partner in the firm audaciously: 

“Sometimes we marry our employers—at 
least, that’s what the newspapers say.” 

The hand banged on half a dozen of the keys 
_ of the machine at once. “Yet I don’t care. I 
hate it—I hate it—I hate it—and you needn’t 
look so!” 

The senior partner was regarding the rebel 
with grave-eyed reproach. 

“T thought you did,” said I. “I don’t sup- 
pose American girls are much different from 
English ones in instinct.” 

“Tsn’t it Théophile Gautier who says that 
the only differences between country and coun- 
try lie in the slang and the uniform of the 

police ?”’ 

Now, in the name of all the gods at once, 


286 AMERICAN POLITICS 


what is one to say to a young lady (who in 
England would be a person) who earns her 
own bread, and very naturally hates the em- 
ploy, and slings out-of-the-way quotations at 
your head? That one falls in love with her 
goes without saying, but that is not enough, 

A mission should be established, 


III 
AMERICAN SALMON 


The race is neither to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong; but time and chance cometh to all. 


HAVE lived! 

The American Continent may now sink 
under the sea, for I have taken the best that it 
yields, and the best was neither dollars, love, 
nor real estate. 

Hear now, gentlemen of the Punjab Fishing 
Club, who whip the reaches of the Tavi, and 
you who painfully import trout to Octamund, 
and I will tell you how old man California 
and I went fishing, and you shall envy. 

We returned from The Dalles to Portland 
by the way we had come, the steamer stopping 
en route to pick up a night’s catch of one of 
the salmon wheels on the river, and to deliver 
it at a cannery down-stream. 

When the proprietor of the wheel announced 
that his take was two thousand two hundred - 

289 


290 AMERICAN SALMON 


and thirty pounds weight of fish, “and not a 
heavy catch neither,” I thought he lied. But 
he sent the boxes aboard, and I counted the 
salmon by the hundred—huge fifty-pounders 
hardly dead, scores of twenty and thirty 
pounders, and a host of smaller fish. They 
were all Chenook salmon, as distinguished 
from the “steel head” and the “silver side.” 
That is to say, they were royal salmon, and 
California and [ dropped a tear over them, as 
monarchs who deserved a better fate; but the 
lust of slaughter entered into our souls, and 
we talked fish and forgot the mountain scenery 
that had so moved us a day before. 

The steamer halted at a rude wooden ware- 
house built on piles in a lonely reach of the 
river, and sent in the fish. I followed them up 
a scale-strewn, fishy incline that led to the can- 
nery. The crazy building was quivering with 
the machinery on its floors, and a glittering 
bank of tin scraps twenty feet high showed 
where the waste was thrown after the cans had 
been punched. 

Only Chinamen were employed on the work, | 
and they looked like blood-besmeared yellow 
devils as they crossed the rifts of sunlight that 
lay upon the floor. When our consignment ar- 
rived, the rough wvuoden boxes broke of them- — 


AMERICAN SALMON 291 


selves as they were dumped down under a jet 
of water, and the salmon burst out in a stream 
of quicksilver. A Chinaman jerked up a 
twenty-pounder, beheaded and detailed it with 
two swift strokes of a knife, flicked out its in- 
ternal arrangements with a third, and cast it 
into a blood-dyed tank. The headless fish 
leaped from under his hands as though they 
were facing a rapid. Other Chinamen pulled 
them from the vat and thrust them under a 
thing like a chaff-cutter, which, descending, 
hewed them into unseemly red gobbets fit for 
the can. 

More Chinamen, with yellow, crooked fin- 
gers, jammed the stuff into the cans, which slid 
down some marvelous machine forthwith, 
soldering their own tops as they passed. Each 
can was hastily tested for flaws, and then sunk 
with a hundred companions into a vat of boil- 
ing water, there to be half cooked for a few 
minutes. The cans bulged slightly after the 
Operation, and were therefore slidden along by 
the trolleyful to men with needles and solder- 
ing-irons who vented them and soldered the 
aperture. Except for the label, the “Finest 
Columbia Salmon” was ready for the market. 
I was impressed not so much with the speed 
of the manufacture as the character of the fac- 


292 AMERICAN SALMON 


tory. Inside, on a floor ninety by forty, the 
most civilized and murderous of machinery. 
Outside, three footsteps, the thick-growing 
pines and the immense solitude of the hills. 
Our steamer only stayed twenty minutes at 
that place, but I counted two hundred and 
forty finished cans made from the catch of the 
previous night ere I left the slippery, blood- 
stained, scale-spangled, oily floors and the 
offal-smeared Chinamen, 

We reached Portland, California and I ery- 
ing for salmon, and a real-estate man, to whom 
we had been intrusted by an insurance man, 
met us in the street, saying that fifteen miles 
away, across country, we should come upon a 
place called Clackamas, where we might per- 
chance find what we desired. And California, 
his coat-tails flying in the wind, ran to a livery- 
stable and chartered a wagon and team forth- 
with. I could push the wagon about with one 
hand, so light was its structure. The team was 
purely American—that is to say, almost human 
in its intelligence and docility. Some one said 
that the roads were not good on the way to 
Clackamas, and warned us against smashing 
the springs. “Portland,’’ who had watched the 
preparations, finally reckoned “He’d come 
along, too; and under heavenly skies we 


AMERICAN SALMON 293 


three companions of a day set forth, California 
carefully lashing our rods into the carriage, 
and the bystanders overwhelming us with 
directions as to the saw-mills we were to pass, 
the ferries we were to cross, and the sign-posts 
we were to seek signs from. Half a mile from 
this city of fifty thousand souls we struck (and 
this must be taken literally) a plank road that 
would have been a disgrace to an Irish village. 

Then six miles of macadamized road showed 
us that the team could move. A railway ran 
between us and the banks of the Willamette, 
and another above us through the mountains 
All the land was dotted with small townships, 
and the roads were full of farmers in their 
town wagons, bunches of tow-haired, boggle- 
eyed urchins sitting in the hay behind. The 
men generally looked like loafers, but their 
women were all well dressed. 

Brown braiding on a tailor-made jacket 
does not, however, consort with hay-wagons. 
Then we struck into the woods along what 
California called a camina reale—a good road 
—and Portland a “fair track.” It wound in 
and out among fire-blackened stumps under 
pine-trees, along the corners of log fences, 
through hollows, which must be hopeless 
marsh in the winter, and up absurd gradients. 


n 


204 AMERICAN SALMON 


But nowhere throughout its length did I see 
any evidence of road-making. There was a 
track—you couldn’t get off it, and it was all 
you could do to stay on it. The dust lay a 
foot thick in the blind ruts, and under the dust 
we found bits of planking and bundles of 
brushwood that sent the wagon bounding into 
the air. The journey in itself was a delight. 
Sometimes we crashed through bracken; anon, 
where the blackberries grew rankest, we found 
a lonely little cemetery, the wooden rails all 
awry and the pitiful, stumpy head-stones nod- 
ding drunkenly at the soft green mullions. 
Then, with oaths and the sound of rent under- 
wood, a yoke of mighty bulls would swing 
down a “skid” road, hauling a forty-foot log 
along a rudely made slide. 

A valley full of wheat and cherry-trees suc- 
ceeded, and halting at a house, we bought ten- 
pound weight of lucious black cherries for 
something less than a rupee, and got a drink 


of icy-cold water for nothing, while the un- 


tended team browsed sagaciously by the road- 
side. Once we found a wayside camp of horse- 
dealers lounging by a pool, ready for a sale or 
a swap, and once two sun-tanned youngsters 
shot down a hill on Indian ponies, their full 
creels banging from the high-pommeled saddle. 


AMERICAN SALMON 295 


_ They had been fishing, and were our brethren, 
therefore. We shouted aloud in chorus to 
scare a wild cat; we squabbled over the reasons 
that had led a snake to cross a road; we heaved 
bits of bark at a venturesome chipmunk, who 
was really the little grey squirrel of India, and 
had come to call on me; we lost our way, and 
got the wagon so beautifully fixed on a khud- 
bound road that we had to tie the two hind 
wheels to get it down. 

Above all, California told tales of Nevada 
and Arizona, of lonely nights spent out pros- 
pecting, the slaughter of deer and the chase of 
men, of woman—lovely woman—who is a fire- 
brand in a Western city and leads to the pop- 
ping of pistols, and of the sudden changes and 
chances of Fortune, who delights in making 
the miner or the lumberman a quadruplicate 
millionaire and in “busting” the railroad king. 

That was a day to be remembered, and it 
had only begun when we drew rein at a tiny 
farmhouse on the banks of the Clackamas and 
sought horse feed and lodging, ere we hastened 
to the river that broke over a weir not a quar- 
ter of a mile away. Imagine a stream seventy 
yards broad divided by a pebbly island, run- 
ning over seductive “riffles” and swirling into 
deep, quiet pools, where the good salmon goes 


206 AMERICAN SALMON 


to smoke his pipe after meals. Get such a 
stream amid fields of breast-high crops sur- 
rounded by hills of pines, throw in where you 
please quiet water, long-fenced meadows, and 
a hundred-foot bluff just to keep the scenery 
from growing too monotonous, and you will 
get some faint notion of the Clackamas. The 
weir had been erected to pen the Chenook sal- 
mon from going further upstream. We could 
see them, twenty or thirty pounds, by the score 
in the deep pools, or flying madly against the 
weir and foolishly skinning their noses. They 
were not our prey, for they would not rise at 
a fly, and we knew it. All the same, when one 
made his leap against the weir, and landed on 
the foot-plank with a jar that shook the board 
I was standing on, I would fain have claimed 
him for my own capture. 

Portland had no rod. He held the gaff and 
the whiskey. California sniffed up-stream and 
down-stream, across the racing water, chose 
his ground, and let the gaudy fly drop in the 
tail of a riffle. I was getting my rod together 
when I heard the joyous shriek of the reel and 
the yells of California, and three feet of living 
silver leaped into the air far across the water. 
The forces were engaged. 

The salmon tore up-stream, the tense line 


AMERICAN SALMON 297 


cutting the water like a tide-rip behind him, 
and the light bamboo bowed to breaking. 
What happened thereafter I cannot tell. Cali- 
fornia swore and prayed, and Portland shout- 
ed advice, and I did all three for what appeared 
to be half a day, but was in reality a little over 
a quarter of an hour, and sullenly our fish came 
home with spurts of temper, dashes head on 
and sarabands in the air, but home to the bank 
came he, and the remorseless reel gathered up 
the thread of his life inch by inch. We landed 
him in a little bay, and the spring weight in 
his gorgeous gills checked at eleven and one 
half pounds. Eleven and one half pounds of 
fighting salmon! We danced a war-dance on 
the pebbles, and California caught me round 
the waist in a hug that went near to breaking 
my ribs, while he shouted: 

“Partner! Partner! This is glory! Now 
you catch your fish! Twenty-four years I’ve 
waited for this!’ Cunt 

I went into that icy-cold river and made my 
cast just above the weir, and all but foul- 
hooked a blue-and-black water-snake with a 
coral mouth who coiled herself on a stone and 
hissed maledictions. 

The next cast—ah, the pride of it, the regal 
_ splendor of it! the thrill that ran down from 


e° Se ' 
7 


298 AMERICAN SALMON 


finger-tip to toe! Then the water boiled. He 
broke for the fly and got it. There remained 
enough sense in me to give him all he wanted 
when he jumped not once, but twenty times, 
before the up-stream flight that ran my line out 
to the last half-dozen turns, and I saw the 
nickeled reel-bar glitter under the thinning 
green coils. My thumb was burned deep when 
I strove to stopper the line. 

I did not feel it till later, for my soul was 
out in the dancing weir, praying for him to 
turn ere he took my tackle away. And the 
prayer was heard. As I bowed back, the butt 
of the rod on my left hip-bone and the top 
joint dipping like unto a weeping willow, he 
turned and accepted each inch of slack that I 
could by any means get in as a favor from on 
high. There lie several sorts of success in this 
world that taste well in the moment of enjoy- 
ment, but I question whether the stealthy theft 
of line from an able-bodied salmon who knows 
exactly what you are doing and why you are 
doing it is not sweeter than any other victory 
within human scope. Like California’s fish, he 
ran at me head on, and leaped against the line, 
but the Lord gave me two hundred and fifty 
pairs of fingers in that hour. The banks and 
the pine-trees danced dizzily round me, but I 


ea ee eo a oe ae 


Kerkpalinek vey 


“He ran at me, head on.” 


American Salmon, p. 298 


AMERICAN SALMON 299 


only reeled—reeled as for life—reeled for 
hours, and at the end of the reeling continued 
to give him the butt while he sulked in a pool. 
California was further up the reach, and with 
the corner of my eye I could see him casting 
with long casts and much skill. Then he 
struck, and my fish broke for the weir in the 
same instant, and down the reach we came, 
California and I, reel answering reel even as 
the morning stars sing together. 

The first wild enthusiasm of capture had 
died away. We were both at work now in 
deadly earnest to prevent the lines fouling, to 
stall off a down-stream rush for shaggy water 
just above the weir, and at the same time to 
get the fish into the shallow bay down-stream 
that gave the best practicable landing. Port- 
land bid us both be of good heart, and volun- 
teered to take the rod from my hands. 

I would rather have died among the pebbles 
than surrender my right to play and land a 
salmon, weight unknown, with an eight-ounce 
rod. I heard California, at my ear, it seemed, 
gasping: “He’s a fighter from Fightersville, 
sure!” as his fish made a fresh break across the 
stream. I saw Portland fall off a log fence, 
break the overhanging bank, and clatter down 
to the pebbles, all sand and landing-net, and 


300 AMERICAN SALMON 


I dropped on a log to rest for a moment. As 
I drew breath the weary hands slackened their 
hold, and I forgot to give him the butt. 

A wild scutter in the water, a plunge, and 
a break for the head-waters of the Clackamas 
was my reward, and the weary toil of reeling 
in with one eye under the water and the other 
on the top joint of the rod was renewed. 
Worst of all, I was blocking California’s path 
to the little landing bay aforesaid, and he had 
to halt and tire his prize where he was. 

“The father of all the salmon!” he shouted. 
“For the love of Heaven, get your trout to 
bank, Johnny Bull!’ 

But I could do no more. Even the insult 
failed to move me. The rest of the game was 
with the salmon. He suffered himself to be 
drawn, skipping with pretended delight at 
getting to the haven where I would fain bring 
him. Yet no sooner did he feel shoal water 
under his ponderous belly than he backed like 
a torpedo-boat, and the snarl of the reel told 
me that my labor was in vain. A dozen times, 
at least, this happened ere the line hinted he 
had given up the battle and would be towed 
in. He was towed. The landing-net was use- 
less for one of his size, and I would not have 
him gaffed. I stepped into the shallows and 


mht 


AMERICAN SALMON 301 


heaved him out with respectful hand under 
the gill, for which kindness he battered me 
about the legs with his tail, and I felt the 
strength of him and was proud. California 
had taken my place in the shallows, his fish 
hard held. I was up the bank lying full length 
on the sweet-scented grass and gasping in 
company with my first salmon caught, played 
and landed on an eight-ounce rod. My hands 
were cut and bleeding, I was dripping with 
sweat, spangled like a harlequin with scales, - 
water from my waist down, nose peeled by the 
sun, but utterly, supremely, and consummately 
happy. 

The beauty, the darling, the daisy, my Sal- 
mon Bahadur, weighed twelve pounds, and [I 
had been seven-and-thirty minutes bringing 
him to bank! He had been lightly hooked on 
the angle of the right jaw, and the hook had 
not wearied him. That hour I sat among 
princes and crowned heads greater than them 
all. Below the bank we heard California 
scuffling with his salmon and swearing Spanish 
oaths. Portland and I assisted at the capture, 
and the fish dragged the spring balance out by 
the roots. It was only constructed to weigh 
up to fifteen pounds. We stretched the three 
fish on the grass—the eleven and a half, the 


302 AMERICAN SALMON 


twelve and fifteen pounder—and we gave an 
oath that all who came after should merely be 
weighed and put back again. 

How shall I tell the glories of that day so 
that you may be interested? Again and again 
did California and I prance down that reach to 
the little bay, each with a salmon in tow, and 
land him in the shallows. Then Portland took 
my rod and caught some ten-pounders, and my 
spoon was carried away by an unknown levia- 
than. Each fish, for the merits of the three 
that had died so gamely, was hastily hooked 
on the balance and flung back. Portland re- 
corded the weight in a pocket-book, for he was 
a real-estate man. Each fish fought for all he 
was worth, and none more savagely than the 
smallest, a game little six-pounder. At the end 
of six hours we added up the list. Read it. 
Total: Sixteen fish; aggregate weight, one 
hundred and forty pounds. The score in detail 
runs something like this—it is only interesting 
to those concerned: fifteen, eleven and a half, 
twelve, ten, nine and three quarters, eight, and 
so forth; as I have said, nothing under six 
pounds, and three ten-pounders. 

Very solemnly and thankfully we put up our 
rods—it was glory enough for all time—and 
returned weeping in each other’s arms, weep- 


a 


AMERICAN SALMON 303 


ing tears of pure joy, to that simple, bare- 
legged family in the packing-case house by the 
waterside. 

The old farmer recollected days and nights 
of fierce warfare with the Indians “way back 
in the fifties,” when every ripple of the Colum- 
bia River and her tributaries hid covert dan- 
ger. God had dowered him with a queer, 
crooked gift of expression and a fierce anxiety 
for the welfare of his two little sons—tanned 
and reserved children, who attended school 
daily and spoke good English in a strange 
tongue. 

His wife was an austere woman, who had 
once been kindly, and perhaps handsome. 

Very many years of toil had taken the elas- 
ticity out of step and voice. She looked for 
nothing better than everlasting work—the 
chafing detail of housework—and then a grave 
somewhere up the hill among the blackberries 
and the pines. But in her grim way she sym- 
pathized with her eldest daughter, a small and 
silent maiden of eighteen, who had thoughts 
very far from the meals she tended and the 
pans she scoured. 

We stumbled into the household at a crisis, 
and there was a deal of downright humanity in 
that same. A bad, wicked dressmaker had 


3204 AMERICAN SALMON 


promised the maiden a dress in time for a to- 
morrow’s railway journey, and though the 
barefooted Gregory, who stood in very whole- 
some awe of his sister, had scoured the woods 
on a pony in search, that dress never arrived. 
So, with sorrow in her heart and a hundred 
Sister-Anne glances up the road, she waited 
upon the strangers and, I doubt not, cursed 
them for the wants that stood between her and 
her need for tears. It was a genuine little 
tragedy. The mother, in a heavy, passionless 
voice, rebuked her impatience, yet sat up far 
into the night, bowed over a heap of sewing 
for the daughter’s benefit. 

These things I beheld in the long marigold- 
scented twilight and whispering night, loafing 
round the little house with California, who un- 
folded himself like a lotus to the moon, or in 
the little boarded bunk that was our bedroom, 
swapping tales with Portland and the old man. 

Most of the yarns began in this way: 

“Red Larry was a bull-puncher back of Lone 
County, Montana,” or “There was a man rid- 
ing the trail met a jack-rabbit sitting in a cac- 
tus,”’ or “ "Bout the time of the San Diego land 
boom, a woman from Monterey,” etc. 

You can try to piece out for yourselves 
what sort of stories they were. 


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IV 
THE YELLOWSTONE 


hha upon a time there was a carter who 
brought his team and a friend into the 
Yellowstone Park without due thought. Pres- 
ently they came upon a few of the natural 
beauties of the place, and that carter turned 
his team into his friend’s team, howling: 

“Get out o’ this, Jim. All hell’s alight under 
our noses!” 

And they called the place Hell’s Half-Acre 
to this day to witness if the carter lied. 

We, too, the old lady from Chicago, her 
husband, Tom, and the good little mares, came 
to Hell’s Half-Acre, which is about sixty acres 
in extent, and when Tow said: 

“Would you like to drive over it?” 

We said: 

“Certainly not, and if you do we shall re- 
port you to the park authorities.” 

There was a plain, blistered, peeled, and 
abominable, and it was given over to the sport- 


397 


308: THE YELLOWSTONE 


ings and spoutings of devils who threw mud, 


and steam, and dirt at each other with whoops, 
and halloos, and bellowing curses. 

The places smelled of the refuse of the pit, 
and that odor mixed with the clean, whole- 
some aroma of the pines in our nostrils 
throughout the day. 

This Yellowstone Park is laid out like Ollen- 
dorf, in exercises of progressive difficulty. 
Hell’s Half-Acre was a prelude to ten or twelve 
miles of geyser formation. 

We passed hot streams boiling in the forest; 
saw whiffs of steam beyond these, and yet 
other whiffs breaking through the misty green 
hills in the far distance; we trampled on sul- 
phur in crystals, and sniffed things much worse 
than any sulphur which is known to the upper 
world; and so journeying, bewildered with the 
novelty, came upon a really park-like place 
where Tom suggested we should get out and 
play with the geysers on foot. 

Imagine mighty green fields splattered with 
lime-beds, all the flowers of the summer grow- 
ing up to the very edge of the lime. That was 
our first glimpse of the geyser basins. 

The buggy had pulled up close to a rough, 
broken, blistered cone of spelter stuff between 
ten and twenty feet high. There was trouble 


Steg EEE 


THE YELLOWSTONE 309 


in that place—moaning, splashing, gurgling, 
and the clank of machinery. A spurt of boiling 
water jumped into the air, and a wash of water 
followed. 

I removed swiftly. The old lady from Chi- 
cago shrieked. ‘‘What a wicked waste!’ said 
her husband. 

I think they call it the Riverside Geyser. Its 
spout was torn and ragged like the mouth of a 
gun when a shell has burst there. It grumbled 
madly for a moment or two, and then was 
still. I crept over the steaming lime—it was 
the burning marl on which Satan lay—and 
looked fearfully down its mouth. You should 
never look a gift geyser in the mouth. 

I beheld a horrible, slippery, slimy funnel 
with water rising and falling ten feet at a 
time. Then the water rose to lip level with a 
rush, and an infernal bubbling troubled this 
_ Devil’s Bethesda before the sullen heave of the 
crest of a wave lapped over the edge and made 
me run. 

Mark the nature of the human soul! I had 
begun with awe, not to say terror, for this was 
my first experience of such things. I stepped 
back from the banks of the Riverside Geyser, 
saying : 

“Pooh! Is that all it can do?” 


310 THE YELLOWSTONE 


Yet for aught I knew, the whole thing might 
have blown up at a minute’s notice, she, he, or 
it being an arrangement of uncertain temper. 

We drifted on, up that miraculous valley. 
On either side of us were hills from a thousand 
to fifteen hundred feet high, wooded from 
crest to heel. As far as the eye could range 
forward were the columns of steam in the air, 
misshapen lumps of lime, mist-like preadamite 
monsters, still pools of turquoise-blue, stretches 
of blue corn-flowers, a river that coiled on it- 
self twenty times, pointed bowlders of strange 
colors, and ridges of glaring, staring white. 

A moon-faced trooper of German extraction 
—never was park so carefully patrolled—came 
up to inform us that as yet we had not seen any 
of the real geysers; that they were all a mile 
or so up the valley, and tastefully scattered 
round the hotel in which we would rest for the 
night. 

America is a free country, but the citizens 
look down on the soldier. I had to entertain 
that trooper. The old lady from Chicago 
would have none of him; so we loafed along 
together, now across half-rotten pine logs sunk 
in swampy ground, anon over the ringing 
geyser formation, then pounding through 
river-sand or brushing knee-deep through long 
grass. 


Se ee ee 


THE YELLOWSTONE 311 


“And why did you enlist?” said I. 

The moon-faced one’s face began to work. 
I thought he would have a fit, but he told me a 
story instead—such a nice tale of a naughty 
little girl who wrote pretty love letters to two 
men at once. She was a simple village wife, 
but a wicked “family novelette’ countess 
couldn’t have accomplished her ends better. 
She drove one man nearly wild with the pretty 
little treachery, and the other man abandoned 
her and came West to forget the trickery. 

Moon-face was that man. 

We rounded and limped over a low spur of 
hill, and came out upon a field of aching, 
snowy lime rolled in sheets, twisted into knots, 
riven with rents, and diamonds, and stars, 
stretching for more than half a mile in every 
direction. 

On this place of despair lay most of the big, 
bad geysers who know when there is trouble in 
Krakatoa, who tell the pines when there is a 
cyclone on the Atlantic seaboard, and who are 
exhibited to visitors under pretty and fanciful 
names. 

The first mound that I encountered belonged 
to a goblin who was splashing in his tub. 

I heard him kick, pull a shower-bath on his 
shoulders, gasp, crack his joints, and rub him- 


aie THE YELLOWSTONE 


self down with a towel; then he let the water 
out of the bath, as a thoughtful man should, 
and it all sunk down out of sight till another 
goblin arrived. 

So we looked and we wondered at the Bee- 
kive, whose mouth is built up exactly like a 
hive, at the Turban (which is not in the least 
like a turban), and at many, many other gey- 
sers, hot holes, and springs. Some of them 
rumbled, some hissed, some went off spasmod- 
ically, and others lay dead still in sheets of 
Sapphire and beryl. 

Would you believe that even these terrible 
creatures have to be guarded by the troopers to 
prevent the irreverent Americans from chip- 
ping the cones to pieces, or, worse still, making 
the geyser sick? If you take a small barrel full 
of soft soap and drop it down a geyser’s 
mouth, that geyser will presently be forced to 
lay all before you, and for days afterward will 
be of an irritated and inconstant stomach. 

When they told me the tale I was filled with 
sympathy. Now I wish that I had had soft- 
soap and tried the experiment on some lonely 
little beast far away in the woods. It sounds 
so probable and so human. 

Yet he would be a bold man who would ad- 
minister emetics to the Giantess. She is flat- 


bs, 
i 


THE YELLOWSTONE 313 


lipped, having no mouth; she looks like a pool, 
fifty feet long and thirty wide, and there is no 
ornamentation about her. At irregular inter- 
vals she speaks and sends up a volume of 
water over two hundred feet high to begin 
with, then she is angry for a day and a half— 
sometimes for two days. 

Owing to her peculiarity of going mad in 
the night, not many people have seen the 
Giantess at her finest; but the clamor of her 
unrest, men say, shakes the wooden hotel, and 
echoes like thunder among the hills. 

The congregation returned to the hotel to 
put down their impressions in diaries and note- 
books, which they wrote up ostentatiously in 
the verandas. It was a sweltering hot day, 
albeit we stood somewhat higher than the level 
of Simla, and I left that raw pine creaking 
caravansary for the cool shade of a clump of 
pines between whose trunks glimmered tents. 

A batch of United States troopers came 
down the road and flung themselves across the 
country into their rough lines. The Melican 
cavalryman can ride, though he keeps his ac- 
coutrements pig-fashion and his horse cow- 
fashion. 

I was free of that camp in five minutes—free 
to play with the heavy, lumpy carbines, have 


214 THE YELLOWSTONE 


the saddles stripped, and punch the horses 
knowingly in the ribs. One of the men had 
been in the fight with “Wrap-up-his-Tail,” and 
he told me how that great chief, his horse’s tail 
tied up in red calico, swaggered in front of the 
United States Cavalry, challenging all to a 
single combat. But he was slain, and a few of 
his tribe with him. 

“There’s no use in an Indian, anyway,” con- 
cluded my friend. 

A couple of cowboys—real cowboys— 
jingled through the camp amid a shower of 
mild chaff. They were on their way to Cook 
City, I fancy, and I know that they never 
washed. But they were picturesque ruffians 
exceedingly, with long spurs, hooded stirrups, 
slouch hats, fur weather-cloth over their knees, 
and pistol-butts just easy to hand. 

“The cowboy’s goin’ under before long,” 
said my friend. “Soon as the country’s set- 
tled up he’ll have to go. But he’s mighty use- 
ful now. What would we do without the 
cowboy ?” 

“As how?” said I, and the camp laughed. 

“He has the money. We have the skill. He 
comes in winter to play poker at the military 
posts. We play poker—a few. When he’s 
lost his money we make him drunk and let him 
go. Sometimes we get the wrong man.” 


THE YELLOWSTONE 315 


And he told me a tale of an innocent. cow- 
boy who turned up, cleaned out, at an army 
post, and played poker for thirty-six hours. 
But it was the post that was cleaned out when 
that long-haired Caucasian removed himself, 
heavy with everybody’s pay and declining the 
proffered liquor. 

*“Noaw,’’ said the historian, “I don’t play 
with no cowboy unless he’s a little bit drunk 
first.” 

Ere I departed I gathered from more than 
one man the significant fact that up to one 
hundred yards he felt absolutely secure behind 
his revolver. 

“In England, 1 understand,” quoth the 
limber youth from the South,—“in England a 
man isn’t allowed to play with no firearms. 
He’s got to be taught all that when he enlists. 
I didn’t want much teaching how to shoot 
straight ’fore I served Uncle Sam. And that’s 
just where it is. But you was talking about 
your Horse Guards now?” 

I explained briefly some peculiarities of 
equipment connected with our crackest crack 
cavalry. I grieve to say the camp roared. 

“Take ’em over swampy ground. Let ’em 
run around a bit an’ work the starch out of 
’em, an’ then, Almighty, if we wouldn’t plug 
"em at ease I’d eat their horses.”’ 

Kip. 6—K 


316 THE YELLOWSTONE 


There was a maiden—a very little maiden— 
who had just stepped out of one of James’s 
novels. She owned a delightful mother and an 
equally delightful father—a heavy-eyed, slow- 
voiced man of finance. The parents thought 
that their daughter wanted change. 

She lived in New Hampshire. Accordingly, 
she had dragged them up to Alaska and to the 
Yosemite Valley, and was now returning 
leisurely, via the Yellowstone, just in time for 
the tail-end of the summer season at Saratoga. 

We had met once or twice before in the 
park, and I had been amazed and amused at 
her critical commendation of the wonders that 
she saw. From that very resolute little mouth 
I received a lecture on American literature, the 
nature and inwardness of Washington society, 
the precise value of Cable’s works as compared 
with Uncle Remus Harris, and a few other 
things that had nothing whatever to do with 
geysers, but were altogether pleasant. 

Now, an English maiden who had stumbled 
on a dust-grimed, lime-washed, sun-peeled, 
collarless wanderer come from and going to 
goodness knows where, would, her mother in- 
citing her and her father brandishing his um- 
brella, have regarded him as a dissolute ad- 
venturer—a person to be disregarded. 


THE YELLOWSTONE 317 


Not so those delightful people from New 
Hampshire. They were good enough to treat 
him—it sounds almost incredible—as a human 
being, possibly respectable, probably not in im- 
mediate need of financial assistance. 

Papa talked pleasantly and to the point. 

The little maiden strove valiantly with the 
accent of her birth and that of her rearing, and 
mamma smiled benignly in the background. 

Balance this with a story of a young English 
idiot I met mooning about inside his high col- 
lar, attended by a valet. He condescended to 
tell me that “‘you can’t be too careful who you 
talk to in these parts.”’ And stalked on, fear- 
ing, I suppose, every minute for his social 
chastity. 

That man wasabarbarian (I took occasion 
to tell him so), for he comported himself after 
the manner of the head-hunters and hunted of 
Assam who are at perpetual feud one with an- 
other. 

You will understand that these foolish 
stories are introduced in order to cover the 
fact that this pen cannot describe the glories 
of the Upper Geyser Basin. ‘The evening I 
spent under the lee of the Castle Geyser, sit- 
ting on a log with some troopers and watch- 
ing a baronial keep forty feet high spouting 


318 THE YELLOWSTONE 


hot water. If the Castle went off first, they 
said the Giantess would be quiet, and vice 
versa, and then they told tales till the moon 
got up and a party of campers in the woods 
gave us all something to eat. 

Then came soft, turfy forest that deadened 
the wheels, and two troopers on detachment 
duty stole noiselessly behind us. One was the 
Wrap-up-his-Tail man, and they talked merrily 
while the half-broken horses bucked about 
among the trees. And so a cavalry escort was 
with us for a mile, till we got to a mighty hill 
all strewn with moss agates, and everybody 
had to jump out and pant in that thin air. But 
how intoxicating it was! The old lady from 
Chicago ducked like an emancipated hen as 
she scuttled about the road, cramming pieces of 
rock into her reticule. She sent me fifty yards 
down the hillside to pick up a piece of broken 
bottle which she insisted was moss agate. 

“T’ve some o’ that at home, an’ they shine. 
Yes, you go gét it, young man.” 

As we climbed the long path the road grew 
viler and viler till it became, without disguise, 
the bed of a torrent; and just when things were 
at their rockiest we nearly fell into a little 
sapphire lake—but never sapphire was so blue 
—called Mary’s Lake; and that between eight 
and nine thousand feet above the sea. 


THE YELLOWSTONE 319 


Afterward, grass downs, all on a vehement 
slope, so that the buggy, following the new- 
made road, ran on the two off-wheels mostly 
till we dipped head-first into a ford, climbed up 
a cliff, raced along down, dipped again, and 
pulled up disheveled at “Larry’s” for lunch 
and an hour’s rest. 

Then we lay on the grass and laughed with 
sheer bliss of being alive. This have I known 
once in Japan, once on the banks of the Colum- 
bia, what time the salmon came in and Califor- 
nia howled, and once again in the Yellowstone 
by the light of the eyes of the maiden from 
New Hampshire. Four little pools lay at my 
elbow, one was of black water (tepid), one 
clear water (cold), one clear water (hot), 
one red water (boiling). My newly washed 
handkerchief covered them all, and we two 
marveled as children marvel. 

“This evening we shall do the Grand Can- 
yon of the Yellowstone,” said the maiden. 

“Together ?” said I; and she said, “Yes.” 

The sun was beginning to sink when we 
heard the roar of falling waters and came to 
a broad river along whose banks we ran. And 
then—I might at a pinch describe the infernal 
regions, but not the other place. The Yellow- 
stone River has occasion to run through a 


320 THE YELLOWSTONE 


gorge about eight miles long. To get to the 
bottom of the gorge it makes two leaps, one of 
about one hundred and twenty and the other of 
three hundred feet. I investigated the upper 
or lesser fall, which is close to the hotel. 

Up to that time nothing particular happens 
to the Yellowstone—its banks being only 
rocky, rather steep, and plentifully adorned 
with pines. 

At the falls it comes round a corner, green, 
solid, ribbed with a little foam, and not more 
than thirty yards wide. Then it goes over, 
still green, and rather more solid than before. 
After a minute or two, you, sitting upon a 
rock directly above the drop, begin to under- 
stand that something has occurred; that the 
river has jumped between solid cliff walls, and 
that the gentle froth of water lapping the sides 
of the gorge below is really the outcome of 
great waves. 

And the river yells aloud; but the cliffs do 
not allow the yells to escape. 

That inspection began with curiosity and 
finished in terror, for it seemed that the whole 
world was sliding in chrysolite from under my 
feet. I followed withthe others round the cor- 
ner to arrive at the brink of the canyon. We 
had to climb up a nearly perpendicular ascent 


THE YELLOWSTONE 321 


to begin with, for the ground rises more than 
the river drops. Stately pine woods fringe 
either lip of the gorge, which is the gorge of 
the Yellowstone. You'll find all about it in the 
guide books. 

All that I can say is that without warning or 
preparation I looked into a gulf seventeen hun- 
dred feet deep, with eagles and fish-hawks 
circling far below. And the sides of that gulf 
were one wild welter of color—crimson, 
emerald, cobalt, ochre, amber, honey splashed 
with port wine, snow white, vermilion, lemon, 
and silver grey in wide washes. The sides did 
not fall sheer, but were graven by time, and 
water, and air into monstrous head of kings, 
dead chiefs—men and women of the old time. 
So far below that no sound of its strife could 
reach us, the Yellowstone River ran a finger- 
wide strip of jade green. 

The sunlight took those wondrous walls and 
gave fresh hues to those that nature had al- 
ready laid there. 

_ Evening crept through the pines that shad- 
owed us, but the full glory of the day flamed 
in that canyon as we went out very cautiously 
to a jutting piece of rock—blood-red or pink 
it was—that overhung the deepest deeps of all. 

Now I know what it is to sit enthroned amid 


2322 THE YELLOWSTONE 


the clouds of sunset as the spirits sit in Blake’s 
pictures. Giddiness took away all sensation of 
touch or form, but the sense of blinding color 
remained. 

When I reached the mainland again I had 
sworn that I had been floating. 

The maid from New Hampshire said no 
word for a very long time. Then she quoted 
poetry, which was perhaps the best thing she 
could have done. 

“And to think that this show-place has been 
going on all these days an’ none of we ever 
saw it,’’ said the old lady from Chicago, with 
an acid glance at her husband. 

“No, only the Injians,”’ said he, unmoved; 
and the maiden and I laughed. 

Inspiration is fleeting, beauty is vain, and 
the power of the mind for wonder limited. 
Though the shining hosts themselves had risen 
choiring from the bottom of the gorge, they 
would not have prevented her papa and one 
baser than he from rolling stones down those 
stupendous rainbow-washed slides. Seventeen 
hundred feet of steepest pitch and rather more 
than seventeen hundred colors for log or 
bowlder to whirl through! 

So we heaved things and saw them gather 
way and bound from white rock to red or yel- 


wes 


ae 


THE YELLOWSTONE 323 


low, dragging behind them torrents of color, 
till the noise of their descent ceased and they 
bounded a hundred yards clear at the last into 
the Yellowstone. 

“‘T’ve been down there,” said Tom, that even- 
ing. “It’s easy to get down if your’re careful 
—just sit an’ slide; but getting up is worse. 
An’ I found down below there two stones just 
marked with a picture of the canyon. I 
wouldn’t sell these rocks not for fifteen dol- 
lars.” 

And papa and I crawled down to the Yellow- 
stone—just above the first little fall—to wet a 
line for good luck. The round moon came up 
and turned the cliffs and pines into silver; and 
a two-pound trout came up also, and we slew 
him among the rocks, nearly tumbling into 
that wild river. 


*K * * * * * 


Then out and away to Livingstone once 
more. The maiden from New Hampshire dis- 
appeared, papa and mamma with her. Dis- 
appeared, too, the old lady from Chicago, and 
the others. 


oid 


¥ 
CHICAGO 


“T know thy cunning and thy greed, 
Thy hard high lust and wilful deed, 
And all thy glory loves to tell 
Of specious gifts material.” 


HAVE struck a city—a real city—and they 
call it Chicago. 

The other places do not count. San Fran- 
cisco was a pleasure-resort as well as a city, 
and Salt Lake was a phenomenon. 

This place is the first American city I have 
encountered. It holds rather more than a 
million of people with bodies, and stands on 
the same sort of soil as Calcutta. Having seen 
it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It 
is inhabited by savages. Its water is the water 
of the Hooghly, and its air is dirt. Also it 
says that it is the “boss” town of America. 

I do not believe that it has anything to do 
with this country. They told me to go to the 
Palmer House, which is overmuch gilded and 
mirrored, and there I found a huge hall of tes- 
sellated marble crammed with people talking 


327 


328 CHICAGO 


about money, and spitting about everywhere. 
Other barbarians charged in and out of this 
inferno with letters and telegrams in their 
hands, and yet others shouted at each other. 
A man who had drunk quite as much as was 
good for him told me that this was “the finest 
hotel in the finest city on God Almighty’s 
earth.” By the way, when an American wishes 
to indicate the next country or state, he says, 
“God A’mighty’s earth.” This prevents dis- 
cussion and flatters his vanity. 

Then I went out into the streets, which are 
long and flat and without end. And verily it 
is not a good thing to live in the East for any 
length of time. Your ideas grow to clash with 
those held by every right-thinking man. I 
looked down interminable vistas flanked with 
nine, ten, and fifteen-storied houses, and 
crowded with men and women, and the show 
impressed me with a great horror. 

Except in London—and I have forgotten 
what London was like—I had never seen so 
many white people together, and never such a 
collection of miserables. There was no color 
in the street and no beauty—only a maze of 
wire ropes overhead and dirty stone flagging 
under foot. 

A cab-driver volunteered to show me the 


CHICAGO 329 


gloty of the town for so much an hour, and 
with him I wandered far. He conceived that 
all this turmoil and squash was a thing to be 
reverently admired, that it was good to hud- | 
dle men together in fifteen layers, one atop of 
the other, and to dig holes in the ground for 
offices. 

He said that Chicago was a live town, and 
that all the creatures hurrying by me were 
engaged in business. That is to say they were 
trying to make some money that they might 
not die through lack of food to put into their 
bellies. He took me to canals as black as ink, 
and filled with untold abominations, and bid 
me watch the stream of traffic across the 
bridges. 

He then took me into a saloon, and while I 
drank made me note that the floor was cov- 
ered with coins sunk in cement. A Hottentot 
would not have been guilty of this sort of 
barbarism. The coins made an effect pretty 
enough, but the man who put them there had 
no thought of beauty, and, therefore, he was a 
savage. 

Then my cab-driver showed me business 
blocks gay with signs and studded with fan- 
tastic and absurd advertisements of goods, and 
looking down the long street so adorned, it 


330 CHICAGO 


was as though each vender stood at his door, 
howling: 

“For the sake of money, employ or buy of 
me, and me only!” 

Have you ever seen a crowd at a famine- 
relief distribution? You know then how the 
men leap into the air, stretching out their arms 
above the crowd in the hope of being seen, 
while the women dolorously slap the stomachs 
of their children and whimper. I had sooner 
watch famine relief than the white man en- 
gaged in what he calls legitimate competition. 
The one I understand. The other makes me 
ill. 

And the cabman said that these things were 
the proof of progress, and by that I knew he 
had been reading his newspaper, as every in- 
telligent American should. The papers tell 
their clientéle in language fitted to their com- 
prehension that the snarling together of tele- 
graph-wires, the heaving up of houses, and the 
making of money is progress. 

I spent ten hours in that huge wilderness, 
wandering through scores of miles of these 
terrible streets and jostling some few hundred 
thousand of these terrible people who talked 
paisa bat through their noses. 

The cabman left me; but after awhile I 


- CHICAGO 331 


picked up another man, who was full of fig- 
ures, and into my ears he poured them as oc- 
casion required or the big blank factories sug- 
gested. Here they turned out so many hun- 
dred thousand dollars’ worth of such and such 
an article; there so many million other things; 
this house was worth so many million dollars; 
that one so many million, more or less. It 
was like listening to a child babbling of its 
hoard of shells. It was like watching a fool 
playing with buttons. But I was expected to 
do more than listen or watch. He demanded 
that I should admire; and the utmost that I 
could say was: 

“Are these things so? Then I am very sorry 
for you.” 

That made him angry, and he said that in- 
sular envy made me unresponsive. So, you 
see, I could not make him understand. 

About four-and-a-half hours after Adam 
was turned out of the Garden of Eden he felt 
hungry, and so, bidding Eve take care that her 
head was not broken by the descending fruit, 
shinned up a cocoanut-palm. That hurt his 
legs, cut his breast, and made him breathe 
heavily, and Eve was tormented with fear lest 
her lord should miss his footing, and so bring 
the tragedy of this world to an end ere the 


33? CHICAGO 


curtain had fairly risen. Had I met Adam 
then, I should have been sorry for him. To- 
day I find eleven hundred thousand of his sons 
just as far advanced as their father in the art 
of getting food, and immeasurably inferior to 
him in that they think that their palm-trees 
lead straight to the skies. Consequently, 1 am 
sorry in rather more than a million different 
ways. 

In the East bread comes naturally, even to 
the poorest, by a little scratching or the gift of 
a friend not quite so poor. In less favored 
countries one is apt to forget. Then I went 
to bed. And that was on a Saturday night. 

Sunday brought me the queerest experietices 
of all—a revelation of barbarism complete. I 
found a place that was officially described as 
a church. It was a circus really, but that the 
worshippers did not know. There were 
flowers all about the building, which was fitted 
up with plush and stained oak and much lux- 
ury, including twisted brass candlesticks of se- 
verest Gothic design. 

To these things and a congregation of sav- 
ages entered suddenly a wonderful man, com- 
pletely in the confidence of their God, whom he 
treated colloquially and exploited very much 
as a newspaper reporter would exploit a for- 


CHICAGO 333 


eign potentate. But, unlike the newspaper re- 
porter, he never allowed his listeners to forget 
that he, and not He, was the centre of attrac- 
tion. With a voice of silver and with imagery 
borrowed from the auction-room, he built up 
for his hearers a heaven on the lines of the 
Palmer House (but with all the gilding real 
gold, and all the plate-glass diamond), and set 
in the centre of it a loud-voiced, argumentative, 
very shrewd creation that he called God. One 
sentence at this point caught my delighted ear. 
It was apropos of some question of the Judg- 
ment, and ran: 

“No! I tell you God doesn’t do business 
that way.” 

He was giving them a deity whom they 
could comprehend, and a gold and jeweled 
heaven in which they could take a natural in- 
terest. He interlarded his performance with 
the slang of the streets, the counter, and the 
exchange, and he said that religion ought to 
enter into daily life. Consequently, I presume 
he introduced it as daily life—his own and the 
life of his friends. 

Then I escaped before the blessing, desiring 
no benediction at such hands. But the persons 
who listened seemed to enjoy themselves, and 
I understood that I had met with a popular 
preacher. 


334 CHICAGO 


Later on, when I had perused the sermons of 
a gentleman called Talmage and some others, 
I perceived that I had been listening to a very 
mild specimen. Yet that man, with his brutal 
gold and silver idols, his hands-in-pocket, 
cigar-in-mouth, and _hat-on-the-back-of-the- 
head style of dealing with the sacred vessels, 
would count himself, spirituaily, quite compe- 
tent to send a mission to convert the Indians. 

All that Sunday I listened to people who 
said that the mere fact of spiking down strips 
of iron to wood, and getting a steam and iron 
thing to run along them was progress, that the 
telephone was progress, and the net-work of 
wires overhead was progress. They repeated 
their statements again and again. 

One of them took me to their City Hall and 
Board of Trade works, and pointed it out with 
pride. It was very ugly, but very big, and the 
streets in front of it were narrow and unclean. 
When I saw the faces of the men who did 
business in that building, I felt that there had 

been a mistake in their billeting. 
| By the way, ’tis a consolation to feel that I 
am not writing to an English audience. Then 
I should have to fall into feigned ecstasies 
over the marvelous progress of Chicago since 
the days of the great fire, to allude casually to 


CHICAGO 335 


_ the raising of the entire city so many feet above 
the level of the lake which it faces, and gen- 
erally to grovel before the golden calf. But 
you, who are desperately poor, and therefore 
by these standards of no account, know things, 
will understand when I write that they have 
managed to get a million of men together on 
flat land, and that the bulk of these men to- 
gether appear to be lower than Mahajans and 
not so companionable as a Punjabi Jat after 
harvest. 

But I don’t think it was the blind hurry of 
the people, their argot, and their grand ig- 
norance of things beyond their immediate in- 
terests that displeased me so much as a study 
of the daily papers of Chicago. 

Imprimis, there was some sort of a dispute 
between New York and Chicago as to which 
town should give an exhibition of products to 
be hereafter holden, and through the medium 
of their more dignified journals the two cities 
were yahooing and hi-yi-ing at each other like 
opposition newsboys. They called it humor, 
but it sounded like something quite different. 

That was only the first trouble. The second 
lay in the tone of the productions. Leading 
articles which include gems such as “Back of 
such and such a place,” or, “We noticed, Tues- 


336 - CHICAGO 


day, such an event,” or, “don’t” for “does 
not,’’ are things to be accepted with thankful- 
ness. All that made me want to cry was that 
in these papers were faithfully reproduced all 
the war-cries and “back-talk” of the Palmer 
House bar, the slang of the barber-shops, the 
mental elevation and integrity of the Pullman 
car porter, the dignity of the dime museum, 
and the accuracy of the excited fish-wife. I 
am sternly forbidden to believe that the paper 
educates the public. Then I am compelled to 
believe that the public educate the paper; yet 
suicides on the press are rare. 

Just when the sense of unreality and oppres- 
sion was strongest upon me, and when I most 
wanted help, a man sat at my side and began 
to talk what he called politics. 

I had chanced to pay about six shillings for 
a traveling-cap worth eighteen-pence, and he 
made of the fact a text fora sermon. He said 
that this was a rich country, and that the peo- 
ple liked to pay two hundred per cent. on the 
value of a thing. They could afford it. He 
said that the government imposed a protective 
duty of from ten to seventy per cent. on for- 
eign-made articles, and that the American 
manufacturer consequently could sell his goods 
for a healthy sum. Thus an imported hat 


CHICAGO © 337 


would, with duty, cost two guineas. The 
American manufacturer would make a hat for 
seventeen shillings, and sell it for one pound 
fifteen. In these things, he said, lay the great- 
ness of America and the effeteness of England. 
Competition between factory and factory kept 
the prices down to decent limits, but I was 
never to forget that this people were a rich 
people, not like the pauper Continentals, and 
that they enjoyed paying duties. 

To my weak intellect this seemed rather like 
juggling with counters. Everything that I 
have yet purchased costs about twice as much 
as it would in England, and when native made 
is of inferior quality. 

Moreover, since these lines were first 
thought of, I have visited a gentleman who 
owned a factory which used to produce things. 
He owned the factory still. Not a man was in 
it, but he was drawing a handsome income 
from a syndicate of firms for keeping it closed 
in order that it might not produce things. 
This man said that if protection were aban- 
doned, a tide of pauper labor would flood the 
country, and as I looked at his factory I 
thought how entirely better it was to have no 
labor of any kind whatever rather than face 
so horrible a future. 


338 CHICAGO 


Meantime, do you remember that this pe- 
culiar country enjoys paying money for value 
not received? J am an alien, and for the life 
of me I cannot see why six shillings should be 
paid for eighteen-penny caps, or eight shillings 
for half-crown cigar-cases. When the country 
fills up to a decently populated level a few mil- 
lion people who are not aliens will be smitten 
with the same sort of blindness. 

But my friend’s assertion somehow thor- 
oughly suited the grotesque ferocity of Chi- 
cago. 

See now and judge! In the village of Isser 
Jang, on the road to Montgoiery, there be 
four Changar women who winnow corn—some 
seventy bushels a year. Beyond their hut lives 
Purun Dass, the money-lender, who on good 
security lends as much as five thousand rupees 
ina year. Jowala Singh, the smith, mends the 
village plows—some thirty, broken at the 
share, in three hundred and sixty-five days; 
and Hukm Chund, who is letter-writer and 
head of the little club under the travelers’ tree, 
generally keeps the village posted in such gos- 
sip as the barber and the midwife have not yet 
made public property. 

Chicago husks and winnows her wheat by 
the million bushels, a hundred banks lend hune 


CHICAGO 339 


dreds of millions of dollars in the year, and 
scores of factories turn out plow-gear and ma- 
chinery by steam. Scores of daily papers do 
work which Hukm Chund and the barber and 
the midwife perform, with due regard for pub- 
lic opinion, in the village of Isser Jang. So 
far as manufactories go, the difference be- 
tween Chicago on the lake, and Isser Jang on 
the Montgomery road, is one of degree only, 
and not of kind. As far as the understanding 
of the users of life goes, Isser Jang, for all its 
seasonal cholers, has the advantage over Chi- 
cago. 

Jowala Singh knows and takes care to avoid 
the three or four ghoul-haunted fields on the 
outskirts of the village; but he is not urged by 
millions of devils to run about all day in the 
sun and swear that his plowshares are the best 
in the Punjab; nor does Purun Dass fly in an 
ekka more than once or twice a year, and he 
knows, on a pinch, how to use the railway and 
the telegraph as well as any son of Israel in 
Chicago. But this is absurd. 

The East is not the West, and these men 
must continue to deal with the machinery of 
life, and to call it progress. Their very preach- 
ers dare not rebuke them. They gloss over 
the hunting for money and the thrice-sharp- 


340. CHICAGO 


ened bitterness of Adam’s curse, by saying that 
such things dower a man with a larger range 
of thoughts and higher aspirations. They do 
not say, “Free yourselves from your own slav- 
ery,” but rather, “If you can possibly manage 
it, do not set quite so much store on the things 
of this world.” 

And they do not know what the things of 
this world are! 

I went off to see cattle killed, by way of 
clearing my head, which, as you will perceive 
was getting muddled. They say every Eng- 
lishman goes to the Chicago stock-yards. You 
shall find them about six miles from the city; 
and once having seen them, you will never for- 
get the sight. 

As far as the eye can reach stretches a 
township of cattle-pens, cunningly divided in- 
to blocks, so that the animals of any pen can 
be speedily driven out close to an inclined tim- 
ber path which leads to an elevated covered 
way straddling high above the pens. These via- 
ducts are two-storied. On the upper story tramp 
the doomed cattle, stolidly for the most part. 
On the lower, with a scuffling of sharp hoofs 
and multitudinous yells, run the pigs, the same 
end being appointed for each. Thus you will 
see the gangs of cattle waiting their turn—as 


CHICAGO 34T 


they wait sometimes for days; and they need 
not be distressed by the sight of their fellows 
running about in the fear of death. All they 
know is that a man on horseback causes their 
next-door neighbors to move by means of a 
whip. Certain bars and fences are unshipped 
and behold! that crowd have gone up the 
mouth of a sloping tunnel and return no more. 

It is different with the pigs. They shriek 
back the news of the exodus to their friends, 
and a hundred pens skirl responsive. 

It was to the pigs I first addressed myself. 
Selecting a viaduct which was full of them, 
as I could hear, though I could not see, I 
marked a sombre building whereto it ran, and 
went there, not unalarmed by stray cattle who 
had managed to escape from their proper 
quarters. A pleasant smell of brine warned me 
of what was coming. I entered the factory 
and found it full of pork in barrels, and on 
another story more pork unbarrelled, and in 
a huge room the halves of swine, for whose 
behoof great lumps of ice were being pitched 
in at the window, That room was the mor- 
tuary chamber where the pigs lay for a little 
while in state ere they began their progress 
through such passages as kings may some- 
times travel. 


242 CHICAGO 


Turning a corner, and not noting an over- 
head arrangement of greased rail, wheel, and 
pulley, I ran into the arms of four eviscerated 
carcasses, all pure white and of a human as- 
pect, pushed by a man clad in vehement red. 
When I leaped aside, the floor was slippery 
under me. Also there was a flavor of farm- 
yard in my nostrils and the shouting of a mul- 
titude in my ears. But there was no joy in 
that shouting. Twelve men stood in two lines, 
six a side. Between them and overhead ran 
the railway of death that had nearly shunted 
me through the window. Each man carried 
a knife, the sleeves of his shirt were cut off 
at the elbows, and from bosom to heel he was 
blood-red. 

Beyond this perspective was a column of 
steam, and beyond that was where I worked 
my awe-struck way, unwilling to touch beam 
or wall. The atmosphere was stifling as a 
night in the rains by reason of the steam and 
the crowd. I climbed to the beginning of 
things and, perched upon a narrow beam, over- 
looked very nearly all the pigs ever bred in 
Wisconsin. They had just been shot out of 
the mouth of the viaduct and huddled together 
in a large pen. Thence they were flicked per- 
suasively, a few at a time, into a smaller cham- 


CHICAGO 343 


ber, and there a man fixed tackle on their hind- 
er legs, so that they rose in the air, suspended 
from the railway of death. 

Oh! it was then they shrieked and called on 
their mothers, and made promises of amend- 
ment, till the tackle-man punted them in their 
backs and they slid head down into a brick- 
floored passage, very like a big kitchen sink, 
that was blood-red. There awaited them a 
red man with a knife, which he passed jauntily 
through their throats, and the full-voiced shriek 
became a splutter, and then a fall as of heavy 
tropical rain, and the red man, who was backed 
against the passage-wall, you will understand, 
stood clear of the wildly kicking hoofs and 
passed his hand over his eyes, not from any 
feeling of compassion, but because the spurted 
blood was in his eyes, and he had barely time 
to stick the next arrival. Then that first stuck 
swine dropped, still kicking, into a ‘great vat 
of boiling water, and spoke no more words, but 
wallowed in obedience to some unseen ma- 
chinery, and presently came forth at the lower 
end of the vat, and was heaved on the blades 
of a blunt paddle-wheel, things which said 
“Hough, hough, hough!” and skelped all the 
hair off him, except what little a couple of men 
_ with knives could remove. 


344 CHICAGO 


Then he was again hitched by the heels to 
that said railway, and passed down the line 
of the twelve men, each man with a knife— 
losing with each man a certain amount of his 
individuality, which was taken away in a 
wheelbarrow, and when he reached the last 
man he was very beautiful to behold, but ex- 
cessively unstuffed and limp. Preponderance 
of individuality was ever a bar to foreign trav- 
el. That pig could have been in case to visit 
you in India had he not parted with some of 
his most cherished notions. 

The dissecting part impressed me not so 
much as the slaying. They were so exces- 
sively alive, these pigs. And then, they were 
so excessively dead, and the man in the drip- 
ping, clammy, hot passage did not seem to 
care, and ere the blood of such a one had ceased 
to foam on the floor, such another and four 
friends with him had shrieked and died. But 
a pig is only the unclean animal—the forbid- 
den of the prophet, 


ee ii 
Pyrane Aol 


RA 


THE AMERICAN ARMY 


I SHOULD very much like to deliver a dis- 

sertation on the American army and the 
possibilities of its extension. You see, it is 
such a beautiful little army, and the dear people 
don’t quite understand what to do with it. 
The theory is that it is an instructional nucleus 
round which the militia of the country will 
rally, and from which they will get a stiffening 
in time of danger. Yet other people considcr 
that the army should be built, like a pair of 
lazy tongs—on the principle of elasticity and 
extension—so that in time of need it may fill 
up its skeleton battalions and empty saddle 
troops. This is real wisdom, because the 
American army, as at present constituted, is 
made up of: 

Twenty-five regiments infantry, ten com- 
panies each. 

Ten regiments cavalry, twelve companies 
each. 

Five regiments artillery, twelve companies 
each. 


wt Kip. 6—L 


348 THE AMERICAN ARMY, 


Now. there is a notion in the air to reorgan- 
ize the service on these lines: 

Eighteen regiments infantry at four bat- 
talions, four companies each; third battalion, 
skeleton; fourth on paper. 

Eight regiments cavalry at four battalions, 
four troops each; third battalion, skeleton; 
fourth on paper. 

Five regiments artillery at four battalions, 
four companies each; third battalion, skeleton; 
fourth on paper. | 

Observe the beauty of this business. The 
third battalion will have its officers, but no 
men; the fourth will probably have a rendez- 
vous and some equipment. 

It is not contemplated to give it anything 
more definite at present. Assuming the regi- 
ments to be made up to full complement, we 
get an army of fifty thousand men, which after 
the need passes away must be cut down fifty 
per cent., to the huge delight of the officers. 

The military needs of the States be three: 
(a) Frontier warfare, an employment well 
within the grip of the present army of twenty- 
five thousand, and in the nature of things grow- 
ing less arduous year by year; (b) internal 
riots and commotions which rise up like a dust 
devil, whirl furiously, and die out long before 


THE AMERICAN ARMY 349 


the authorities at Washington could begin to 
fill up even the third skeleton battalions, much 
less hunt about for material for the fourth; 
(c) civil war, in which, as the case in the af- 
fair of the North and South, the regular army 
would be swamped in the mass of militia and 
armed volunteers that would turn the land in- 
to a hell. 

Yet the authorities persist in regarding an 
external war as a thing to be seriously con- 
sidered. 

The Power that would disembark troops on 
American soil would be capable of heaving a 
shovelful of mud into the Atlantic in the hope 
of filling it up. Consequently, the authorities 
are fascinated with the idea of the sliding 
scale or concertina army. This is an heredi- 
tary instinct, for you know that when we Eng- 
lish have got together two companies, one ma- 
chine gun, a sick bullock, forty generals, and 
a mass of W. O. forms, we say we possess “an 
army corps capable of indefinite extension.” 

The American army is a beautiful little 
army. Some day, when all the Indians are 
happily dead or drunk, it ought to make the 
finest scientific and survey corps that the world 
has ever seen; it does excellent work now, but 
there is this defect in its nature: It is officered, 
as you know, from West Point. 


350 THE AMERICAN ARMY 


The mischief of it is that West Point seems 
to be created for the purpose of spreading a 
general knowledge of military matters among 
the people. A boy goes up to that institution, 
gets his pass, and returns to civil life, so they 
tell me, with a dangerous knowledge that he 
is a suckling Von Moltke, and may apply his 
learning when occasion offers. Given trouble, 
that man will be a nuisance, because he is a 
hideously versatile American, to begin with, 
as cock-sure of himself as a man can be, and 
with all the racial disregard for human life 
to back him through any demi-semi-profes- 
sional generalship. 

In a country where, as the records of the 
daily papers show, men engaged in a conflict 
with police or jails are all too ready to adopt. 
a military formation and get heavily shot in 
a sort of cheap, half-constructed warfare, in- 
stead of being decently scared by the appear- 
ance of the military, this sort of arrangement 
does not seem wise. 

The bond between the States is of an amaz- 
ing tenuity. So long as they do not absolute- 
ly march into the District of Columbia, sit on 
the Washington statues, and invent a flag of 
their own, they can legislate, lynch, hunt ne- 
groes through swamps, divorce, railroad, and 


THE AMERICAN ARMY 351 


rampage as much as ever they choose. They 
do not need knowledge of their own military 
strength to back their genial lawlessness. 

That regular army, which is a dear little 
army, should be kept to itself, blooded on de- 
tachment duty, turned into the paths of science, 
and now and again assembled at feasts of Free 
Masons, and so forth. 

It is too tiny to be a political power. The 
immortal wreck of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public is a political power of the largest and 
most unblushing description. It ought not 
to help to lay the foundations of an amateur 
military power that is blind and irresponsible. 

By great good luck the evil-minded train, 
already delayed twelve hours by a _ burned 
bridge, brought me to the city on a Saturday 
by way of that valley which the Mormons, 
over their efforts, had caused to blossom like 
the rose. Twelve hours previously I had en- 
tered into a new world where, in conversation, 
every one was either a Mormon or a Gentile. 
It is not seemly for a free and independent 
citizen to dub himself a Gentile, but the Mayor 
of Ogden—which is the Gentile city of the val- 
ley—told me that there must be some distinc- 
tion between the two flocks. 

Long before the fruit orchards of Logan or 


352 THE AMERICAN ARMY _ 


the shining levels of the Salt Lake had been 
reached, that mayor—himself a Gentile, and 
one renowned for his dealings with the Mor- 
mons—told me that the great question of the 
existence of the power within the power was 
being gradually solved by the ballot and by 
education. | 

All the beauty of the valley could not make 
me forget it. And the valley is very fair. 
Bench after bench of land, flat as a table against 
the flanks of the ringing hills, marks where 
the Salt Lake rested for awhile in its collapse 
from an inland sea to a lake fifty miles long 
and thirty broad. 

There are the makings of a very fine creed 
about Mormonism. To begin with, the Church 
is rather more absolute than that of Rome. 
Drop the polygamy plank in the platform, but 
on the other hand deal lightly with certain 
forms of excess; keep the quality of the recruit 
down to the low mental level, and see that the 
best of all the agricultural science available 
is in the hands of the elders, and there you 
have a first-class engine for pioneer work. The 
tawdry mysticism and the borrowing from 
Freemasonry serve the low caste Swede and 
Dane, the Welshman and the Cornish cotter, 
just as well as a highly organized heaven. 


_—— nf — ‘ ‘ 
” ee ee ee ee ee se Se ee ee a —_ 


THE AMERICAN ARMY, 353 


Then I went about the streets and peeped 
into people’s front windows, and the decora- 
tions upon the tables were after the manner of 
the year 1850. Main Street was full of coun- 
try folk from the desert, come in to trade with 
the Zion Mercantile Codperative Institute. The 
Church, I fancy, looks after the finances of this 
thing, and it consequently pays good dividends. 

The faces of the women were not lovely. In- 
deed, but for the certainty that ugly persons 
are just as irrational in the matter of undi- 
vided love as the beautiful, it seems that poly- 
gamy was a blessed institution for the women, 
and that only the dread threats of the spiritual 
power could drive the hulking, board-faced 
men into it. The women wore hideous gar- 
ments, and the men appeared to be tied up 
with strings. 

They would market all that afternoon, and 
on Sunday go to the praying-place. I tried 
to talk to a few of them, but they spoke strange 
tongues, and stared and behaved like cows. 
Yet one woman, and not an altogether ugly 
one, confided to me that she hated the idea of 
Salt Lake City being turned into a show-place 
for the amusement of the Gentiles. 

“Tf we ’ave our own institutions, that ain’t 
no reason why people should come ’ere and 
stare at us, his it?” 


354 THE AMERICAN, ARMY; 


The dropped “‘h’’ betrayed her. 

“And when did you leave England?” I said. 

“Summer of ’84. I am Dorset,” she said. 
“The Mormon agent was very good to us, and 
we was very poor. Now we're better off—my 
father, an’ mother, an’ me.” 

“Then you like the State?’ 

She misunderstood at first. 

“Qh, I ain’t livin’ in the state of polygamy. 
Not me, yet. I ain’t married. I like where I 
am. I’ve got things 0’ my own—and some 
land.” 

“But I suppose you will”— 

“Not me. I ain’t like them Swedes an’ 
Danes. I ain’t got nothin’ to say for or against 
polygamy. It’s the elders’ business, an’ be- 
tween you an’ me, I don’t think it’s going on 


much longer. You'll ’ear them in the ’ouse 


to-morrer talkin’ as if it was spreadin’ all over 
America. The Swedes, they think it his. I 
know it hisn’t.” 

“But you’ve got your land all right?” 

“Oh, yes; we’ve got our land, an’ we never 
say aught against polygamy, o’ course—father, 
an’ mother, an’ me.” 

On a table-land overlooking all the city 
Stands the United States garrison of infantry 
and artillery. The State of Utah can do near- 


OTE at ae a a ee ET gee oe ie ae 


THE AMERICAN ARMY 3s 


ly anything it pleases until that much-to-be-de- 
sired hour when the Gentile vote shall quietly 
swamp out Mormonism; but the garrison is 
kept there in case of accidents. The big, shark- 
mouthed, pig-eared, heavy-boned farmers 
sometimes take to their creed with wildest fa- 
naticism, and in past years have made life ex- 
cessively unpleasant for the Gentile when he 
was few in the land. But today, so far from 
killing openly or secretly, or burning Gentile 
farms, it is all the Mormon dare do to feebly 
try to boycott the interloper. His journals 
preach defiance to the United States Govern- 
ment, and in the Tabernacle on a Sunday the 
preachers follow suit. 

When I went there, the place was full of 
people who would have been much better for 
a washing. A man rose up and told them that 
they were the chosen of God, the elect of Israel ; 
that they were to obey their priests, and that 
there was a good time coming. I fancy that 
they had heard all this before so many times 
it produced no impression whatever, even as 
the sublimest mysteries of another faith lose 
salt through constant iteration. They breathed 
heavily through their noses, and stared straight 
in front of them—impassive as flat fish. 


* 


A’S DEFENCELESS COASTS 


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AMERICA’S DEFENCELESS COASTS 


UST suppose that America were twenty 
days distant from England. Then a man 
could study its customs with undivided soul; 
but being so very near next door, he goes about 
the land with one eye on the smoke of the flesh- 
pots of the old country across the seas, while 
with the other he squints biliously and preju- 
dicially at the alien. 

I can lay my hand upon my sacred heart 
and affirm that up to to-day I have never taken 
three consecutive trips by rail without being 
delayed by an accident. That it was am acci- 
dent to another train makes no difference. My 
own turn may come next. 

A few miles from peaceful, pleasure-loving 
Lakewood they had managed to upset an ex- 
press goods train to the detriment of the flim- 
sy permanent way; and thus the train which 
should have left at three departed at seven in 
the evening. I was not angry. I was scarcely 
even interested. When an American train 


359 


360 AMERICA’S 


starts on time I begin to anticipate disaster—a 
visitation for such good luck, you understand. 

Buffalo is a large village of a quarter of a 
million inhabitants, situated on the seashore, 
which is falsely called Lake Erie. It is a peace- 
ful place, and more like an English county 
town than most of its friends. 

Once clear of the main business streets, you 
launch upon miles and miles of asphalted roads 
running between cottages and cut-stone resi- 
dences of those who have money and peace. 
All the Eastern cities own this fringe of ele- 
gance, but except in Chicago nowhere is the 
fringe deeper or more heavily widened than 
in Buffalo. 

The American will go to a bad place be- 
cause he cannot speak English, and is proud 
of it; but he knows how to niake a home for 
himself and his mate, knows how to keep the 
grass green in front of his veranda, and how 
to fullest use the mechanism of life—hot water, 
gas, good bell-ropes, telephones, etc. His 
shops sell him delightful household fitments at 
very moderate rates, and he is encompassed 
with all manner of labor-saving appliances. 
This does not prevent his wife and his daugh- 
ter working themselves to death over house- 
hold drudgery ; but the intention is good. 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 361 


When you have seen the outside of a few 
hundred thousand of these homes and the in- 
sides of a few score, you begin to understand 
why the American (the respectable one) does 
not take a deep interest in what they call “poli- 
tics,’ and why he is so vaguely and generally 
proud of the country that enables him to be 
so comfortable. How can the owner of a 
dainty chalet, with smoked-oak furniture, imi- 
tation Venetian tapestry curtains, hot and cold 
water laid on, a bed of geraniums and holly- 
hocks, a baby crawling down the veranda, and 
a self-acting twirly-whirly hose gently hissing 
over the grass in the balmy dusk of an August 
evening—how can such a man despair of the 
Republic, or descend into the streets on voting 
days and mix cheerfully with “the boys’? 

No, it is the stranger—the homeless jackal 
of a stranger—whose interest in the country is 
limited to his hotel-bill and a railway-ticket, 
that can run from Dan to Beersheba, crying: 

“Allis barren!” 

Every good American wants a home—a 
pretty house and a little piece of land of his 
very own; and every other good American 
seems to get it. 

It was when my gigantic intellect was grap- 
pling with this question that I confirmed a dis- 


362 AMERICA’S 


covery half made in the West. The natives 
of most classes marry young—absurdly young. 
One of my informants—not the twenty-two- 
year-old husband I met on Lake Chautauqua— 
said that from twenty to twenty-four was about 
the usual time for this folly. And when I 
asked whether the practice was confined to the 
constitutionally improvident classes, he said 
“No” very quickly. He said it was a general 
custom, and nobody saw anything wrong with 
it. 

“I guess, perhaps, very early marriage may 
account for a good deal of the divorce,” said 
he, reflectively. 

Whereat I was silent. Their marriages and 
their divorces only concern these people; and 
neither I traveling, nor you, who may come 
after, have any right to make rude remarks 
about them. Only—only coming from a land 
where a man begins to lightly turn to thoughts 
of love not before he is thirty, I own that play- 
ing at house-keeping before that age rather 
surprised me. Out in the West, though, they 
marry, boys and girls, from sixteen upward, 
and I have met more than one bride of fif- 
teen—husband aged twenty. 

“When man and woman are agreed, what 
can the Kazi do?” 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 363 


From those peaceful homes, and the envy 
they inspire (two trunks and a walking-stick 
and a bit of pine forest in British Columbia are 
not satisfactory, any way you look at them), 
I turned me to the lake front of Buffalo, where 
the steamers bellow to the grain elevators, and 
the locomotives yell to the coal-shutes, and 
the canal barges jostle the lumber-raft half 
a mile long as it snakes across the water in 
tow of a launch, and earth, and sky, and sea 
alike are thick with smoke. — 

In the old days, before the railway ran into 
the city, all the business quarters fringed the 
lake-shore where the traffic was largest. To- 
day the business quarters have gone up-town 
to meet the railroad; the lake traffic still ex- 
ists, but you shall find a narrow belt of red- 
brick desolation, broken windows, gap-toothed 
doors, and streets where the grass grows be- 
tween the crowded wharves and the bustling 
city. To the lake front comes wheat from 
Chicago, lumber, coal, and ore, and a large 
trade in cheap excursionists. 

It was my felicity to catch a grain steamer 
and an elevator emptying that same steamer. 
The steamer might have been two thousand 
tons burden. She was laden with wheat in 
bulk; from stem to stern, thirteen feet deep, 


364 AMERICA’S 


lay the clean, red wheat. There was no twen- 
ty-five per cent. dirt admixture about it at all. 
It was wheat, fit for the grindstones as it lay. 
They manceuvred the fore-hatch of that steam- 
er directly under an elevator—a house of red 
tin a hundred and fifty feet high. Then they 
let down into that fore-hatch a trunk as if it 
had been the trunk of an elephant, but stiff, 
because it was a pipe of iron-champed wood. 
And the trunk had a steel-shod nose to it, and 
contained an endless chain of steel buckets. 


Then the captain swore, raising his eyes to 


heaven, and a gruff voice answered him from 
the place he swore at, and certain machinery, 
also in the firmament, began to clack, and the 
glittering, steel-shod nose of that trunk bur- 
rowed into the wheat, and the wheat quivered 
and sunk upon the instant as water sinks when 
the siphon sucks, because the steel buckets with- 
in the trunk were flying upon their endless 
round, carrying away each its appointed mor- 
sel of wheat. 

The elevator was a Persian well wheel—a 
wheel squashed out thin and cased in a pipe, 
a wheel driven not by bullocks, but by much 
horse-power, licking up the grain at the rate 
of thousands of bushels the hour. And the 
wheat sunk in the fore-hatch while a man 


DEFENCELESS COASTS _—_36 


looked—sunk till the brown timbers of the 
bulkheads showed bare, and men leaped down 
through clouds of golden dust and shoveled 
the wheat furiously round the nose of the 
trunk, and got a steam-shovel of glittering steel 
and made that shovel also, till there remained 
of the grain not more than a horse leaves in 
the fold of his nose-bag. 

In this manner do they handle wheat at Buf- 
falo. On one side of the elevator is the steam- 
er, on the other the railway track; and the 
wheat is loaded into the cars in bulk. Wah! 
wah! God is great, and I do not think He ever 
intended Gar Sahai or Luckman Narain to sup- 
ply England with her wheat. India can cut 
in not without profit to herself when her har- 
vest is good and the American yield poor; but 
this very big country can, upon the average, 
supply the earth with all the beef and bread 
that is required. 

A man in the train said to me: 

“We kin feed all the earth, jest as easily as 
we kin whip all the earth.” 

Now the second statement 1s as false as the 
first is true. One of these days the respectable 
Republic will find this out. 

Unfortunately we, the English, will never 
be the people to teach her; because she is a 


366 AMERICA’S 


chartered libertine allowed to say and do arty- 
thing she likes, from demanding the head of 
the empress in an editorial waste-basket, to 
chevying Canadian schooners up and down 
the Alaska Seas. It is perfectly impossible 
to go to war with these people, whatever they 
may do. | 

They are much too nice, in the first place, 
and in the second, it would throw out all the 
passenger traffic of the Atlantic, and upset the 
financial arrangements of the English syndi- 
cates who have invested their money in brew- 
eries, railways, and the like, and in the third, 
it’s not to be done. Everybody knows that, no 
one better than the American. 

Yet there are other powers who are not 
“ohai band” (of the brotherhood )—China, for 
instance. Try to believe an irresponsible writer 
when he assures you that China’s fleet to-day, 
if properly manned, could waft the entire 
American navy out of the water and into the 
blue. The big, fat Republic that is afraid of 
nothing, because nothing up to the present date 
has happened to make her afraid, is as unpro- 
tected as a jelly-fish. Not internally, of course 
—it would be madness for any Power to throw 
men into America; they would die—but as far 
as regards coast defence. 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 367 


From five miles out at sea (I have seen a 
test of her “fortified” ports) a ship of the pow- 
er of H. M. S. “Collingwood” (they haven’t 
run her on a rock yet) would wipe out any 
or every town from San Francisco to Long 
Branch; and three first-class ironclads would 
account for New York, Bartholdi’s Statue and 
all. 

Reflect on this. ’Twould be “Pay up or go 
up’ round the entire coast of the United States. 
To this furiously answers the patriotic Ameri- 
can: 

“We should not pay. We should invent a 

Columbiad in Pittsburg or—or anywhere else, 
and blow any outsider into h—I.” 
_ They might invent. They might lay waste 
their cities and retire inland, for they can sub- 
sist entirely on their own produce. Meantime, 
in a war waged the only way it could be waged 
by an unscrupulous Power, their coast cities 
and their dock-yards would be ashes. They 
could construct their navy inland if they liked, 
but you could never bring a ship down to the 
water-ways, as they stand now. 

They could not, with an ordinary water 
patrol, despatch one regiment of men six miles 
_ across the seas. There would be about five 
million excessively angry, armed men pent up 


368 AMERICA’S 


within American limits. These men would 
require ships to get themselves afloat. The 
country has no such ships, and until the ships 
were built New York need not be allowed a 
single-wheeled carriage within her limits. 

Behold now the glorious condition of this 
Republic which has no fear. There is ransom 
and loot past the counting of man on her sea- 
board alone—plunder that would enrich a na- 
tion—and she has neither a navy nor half a 
dozen first-class ports to guard the whole. No 
man catches a snake by the tail, because the 
creature will sting; but you can build a fire 
around a snake that will make it squirm. 

The country is supposed to be building a 
navy now. When the ships are completed her 
alliance will be worth having—if the alliance 
of any republic can be relied upon. For the 
next three years she can be hurt, and badly 
hurt. Pity it is that she is of our own blood, 
looking at the matter from a Pindarris point of 
view. Dog cannot eat dog. 

These sinful reflections were prompted by 
the sight of the beautifully unprotected con- 
dition of Buffalo—a city that could be made 
to pay up five million dollars without feeling 
it. There are her companies of infantry in a 
sort of port there. A gun-boat brought over 


Se ee ea ee Oe ca ae 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 369 


in pieces from Niagara could get the money 
and get away before she could be caught, while 
an unarmored gun-boat guarding Toronto 
could ravage the towns on the lakes. When 
one hears so much of the nation that can whip 
the earth, it is, to say the least of it, surprising 
to find her so temptingly spankable. 

The average American citizen seems to have 
a notion that any Power engaged in strife 
with the Star Spangled Banner will disem- 
bark men from flat-bottomed boats on a con- 
venient beach for the purpose of being shot 
down by local militia. In his own simple 
phraseology : 

“Not by a darned sight. No, sir.” 

Ransom at long range will be about the 
size of it—cash or crash. 

Let us revisit calmer scenes. 

In the heart of Buffalo there stands a mag- 
nificent building which the population do in- 
nocently style a music-hall. Everybody comes 
here of evenings to sit around little tables and 
listen to a first-class orchestra. The place is 
something like the Gaiety Theatre at Simla, 
enlarged twenty times. The “Light Brigade” 
of Buffalo occupy the boxes and the stage, “as 
it was at Simla in the days of old,” and the 
others sit in the parquet. Here I went with 


379 AMERICA’S 


a friend—poor or boor is the man who cannot 
pick up a friend for a season in America—and 
here was shown the really smart folk of the 
city. I grieve to say I laughed, because when 
an American wishes to be correct he sets him- 
self to imitate the Englishman. ‘This he does 
vilely, and earns not only the contempt of 
his brethren, but the amused scorn of the 
Briton. 

I saw one man who was pointed out to me 
as being the glass of fashion hereabouts. He 
was aggressively English in his get-up. From 
eye-glass to trouser-hem the illusion was per- 
fect, but—he wore with evening-dress but- 
toned boots with brown cloth tops! Not till 
I wandered about this land did I understand 
why the comic papers belabor the Angloma- 
niac. 

Certain young men of the more idiotic sort 
launch into dog-carts and raiment of English 
cut, and here in Buffalo they play polo at four 
in the afternoon. I saw three youths come 
down to the polo-ground faultlessly attired for 
the game and mounted on their best ponies. 
Expecting a game, I lingered; but I was mis- 
taken. These three shining ones with the very 
new yellow hide boots and the red silk sashes 
had assembled themselves for the purpose of 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 371 


knocking the ball about. They smote with 
great solemnity up and down the grounds, 
while the little boys looked on. When they 
trotted, which was not seldom, they rose and 
sunk in their stirrups with a conscientiousness 
that cried out “Riding-school!”’ from afar. 

Other young men in the park were riding 
_after the English manner, in neatly cut riding- 
trousers and light saddles. Fate in derision 
had made each youth bedizen his animal with 
a checkered enameled leather brow-band visi- 
ble half a mile away—a black-and-white check- 
erea brow-band! They can’t do it, any more 
than an Englishman, by taking cold, can add 
that indescribable nasal twang to his orches- 
tra. 

The other sight of the evening was a horror. 
The little tragedy played itself out at a neigh- 
boring table where two very young men and 
two very young women were sitting. It did 
not strike me till far into the evening that the 
pimply young reprobates were making the girls 
drunk. They gave them red wine and then 
white, and the voices rose slightly with the 
maidens’ cheek flushes. I watched, wishing to 
stay, and the youths drank till their speech 
thickened and their eye-balls grew watery. It 
was sickening to see, because I knew what was 


372 AMERICA’S 


going to happen. My friend eyed the group, 
and said: 

“Maybe they’re children of respectable peo- 
ple. I hardly think, though, they’d be allowed 
out without any better escort than these boys. 
And yet the place is a place where every one 
comes, as you see. They may be Little Im- 
moralities—in which case they wouldn’t be 
so hopelessly overcome with two glasses of 
wine. They may be”— 

Whatever they were they got indubitably 
drunk—there in that lovely hall, surrounded 
by the best of Buffalo society. One could do 
nothing except invoke the judgment of Heaven 
on the two boys, themselves half sick with 
liquor. At the close of the performance the 
quieter maiden laughed vacantly and protested 
she couldn’t keep her feet. The four linked 
arms, and staggering, flickered out into the 
street——drunk, gentlemen and ladies, as Davy’s 
swine, drunk as lords! They disappeared down 
a side avenue, but I could hear their laugh- 
ter long after they were out of sight. 

And they were all four children of sixteen 
and seventeen. Then, recanting previous opin- 
ions, | became a prohibitionist. Better it is 
that a man should go without his beer in pub- 
lic places, and content himself with swearing 


ag ee _—, 


a a a 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 373 


at the narrow-mindedness of the majority; 
better it is to poison the inside with very vile 
temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively 
at back-doors, than to bring temptation to the 
lips of young fools such as the four I had 
seen. I understand now why the preachers 
rage against drink. I have said: “There is no 
harm in it, taken moderately;” and yet my 
own demand for beer helped directly to send 
those two girls reeling down the dark street to 
—God alone knows what end. 

If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth tak- 
ing a little trouble to come at—such trouble 
as a man will undergo to compass his own de- 
sires. It is not good that we should let it lie 
before the eyes of children, and I have been a 
fool in writing to the contrary. Very sorry 
for myself, I sought a hotel, and found in the 
hall a reporter who wished to know what I 
thought of the country. Him I lured into con- 
versation about his own profession, and from 
him gained much that confirmed me in my 
views of the grinding tyranny of that thing 
which they call the Press here. Thus: 

I—But you talk about interviewing people 
whether they like it or not. Have you no 
bounds beyond which even your indecent curi- 
osity must not go? 


374 AMERICA’S 


HE—I haven’t struck ’em yet. What do 
you think of interviewing a widow two hours 
after her husband’s death, to get her version 
of his life? 

I—I think that is the work of a ghoul. Must 
the people have no privacy? 

Hr—There is no domestic privacy in Ameri- 
ea. If there was, what the deuce would the 
papers do? See here. Some time ago I had 
an assignment to write up the floral tributes 
when a prominent citizen had died. 

I—Translate, please; I do not understand 
your pagan rites and ceremonies. 

Hr—lI was ordered by the office to describe 
the flowers, and wreaths, and so on, that had 
been sent to a dead man’s funeral. Well, I 
went to the house. There was no one there 
to stop me, so I yanked the tinkler—pulled the 
beli—and drifted into the room where the 
corpse lay all among the roses and smilax. I 
whipped out my notebook and pawed around 
among the floral tributes, turning up the tick- 
ets on the wreaths and seeing who had sent 
them. In the middle of this I heard some one 
saying: “Please, oh, please!’ behind me, and 
there stood the daughter of the house, just 
bathed in tears— 

I—You unmitigated brute! 


DEFENCELESS COASTS 375 


He—Pretty much what I felt myself. “I’m 
very sorry, miss,” I said, “to intrude on the 
privacy of your grief. Trust me, I shall make 
it as little painful as possible.”’ 

-I—But by what conceivable right did you 
outrage— 

He—Hold your horses. I’m telling you. 
Well, she didn’t want me in the house at all, 
and between her sobs fairly waved me away. I 
had half the tributes described, though, and the 
balance I did partly on the steps when the 
stiff un came out, and partly in the church. 
The preacher gave the sermon. That wasn’t 
my assignment. I skipped about among the 
floral tributes while he was talking. I could 
have made no excuse if I had gone back to 
the office and said that a pretty girl’s sobs had 
stopped me obeying orders. I had to do it. 
What do you think of it all? 

I (slowly)—Do you want to know? 

He (with his notebook ready )—Of course. 
How do you regard it? 

I—It makes me regard your interesting na- 
tion with the same shuddering curiosity that 
I should bestow on a Pappan cannibal chewing 
the scalp off his mother’s skull. Does that 
convey any idea to your mind? It makes me 
regard the whole pack of you as heathens—~ 


376 AMERICA’S DEFENCELESS COASTS 


real heathens—not the sort you send missions 
to—creatures of another flesh and blood. You 
ought to have been shot, not dead, but through 
the stomach, for your share in the scandalous 
business, and the thing you call your newspa- 
per ought to have been sacked by the mob, and 
the managing proprietor hanged. 

Hr—From which, I suppose you have noth- 
ing of that kind in your country? 

Oh! Pioneer, venerable Pioneer, and you, 
not less honest press of India, who are oc- 
casionally dull but never blackguardly, what 
could I say? A mere “No,” shouted never so 
loudly, would not have met the needs of the 
case. I said no word. 

The reporter went away, and I took a train 
for Niagara Falls, which are twenty-two miles 
distant from this bad town, where girls get 
drunk of nights and reporters trample on 
corpses in the drawing-rooms of the brave 
and the free! 


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